About Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson is an artist, author and programmer who created his first computer-generated artworks in the early 1980s and has been part of a group of artists who started using computer software to create art in the early stages of personal computing.
Mark Wilson’s Algorithmic Expressionism
First solo exhibition by the pioneering artist in Berlin brings new perspectives of his work
DAM Projects presents Moveto Lineto, a solo exhibition of works by Mark Wilson in its space at Berlin’s Charlottenburg district. The show puts together works from 1983 to 2022 and will be open to the public from 11 November 2022 to 21 January 2023.
Mark Wilson (* 1943) originally began his career as a painter before discovering the possibilities of generative software in the early 1980s. In doing so, he developed a clearly recognisable style from the outset, creating a coherent body of work that is not interested in quick effect, but reveals itself to be multi-layered upon close inspection.
“Writing software can be very intuitive. Even with a very formally defined programming goal, there are usually many different ways to achieve that goal. Choosing a good path to achieve the goal is a question of intuition, judgment, intelligence, and probably a thousand other things. In my case I don’t have a formally defined goal—except to make what I hope are interesting pictures. So I’m juggling these various algorithms—these recipes—in my software, adding a bit more here, taking some away there. I could almost describe my working process as “Algorithmic Expressionism.” This might be a bit of hyperbole, but again, I don’t have a formal goal. I follow the process where it leads me….
My work attempts to directly use the digital nature of the computing machinery. Indeed, it is hard to imagine creating these works with any other medium.”
The exhibition introduces visitors to very different phases of his work, from the first “simple” line compositions to the increasingly complex images of the 2000s.
After his first solo exhibition in Europe at DAM Cologne Gallery in 2012, this is the first comprehensive exhibition in Berlin.
