Brian Willmont

Somewhere between the stoic southwestern naturalist portraiture of Georgia O’Keefe and the war-torn fairyland dreamscapes of Henry Darger lies the recent work of painter Brian Willmont. His latest motif is cacti on a grand scale, like some kind of shamanic vessel for the spirits of dead outlaws and the abandoned ideals of Manifest Destiny. Whether they’re neon-swirled and sporting fabulous Val-Kilmer-circa-Tombstone-style mustaches or towering into the clouds like a pastel sunset-tinged housing project for cowboy skeletons, Willmont’s emphasis on aspects both anthropomorphic and architectural lend an undeniable element of human drama to what might have otherwise been a rather prickly and uninviting subject.

However, to suggest that Willmont’s large and diverse body of work is just about cacti would be a gross oversimplification, like saying Warhol’s work is just about soup and Marilyn Monroe. Though his shows certainly benefit from a strong sense of symbolic consistency where each individual work begins to seem like a discreet commentary on all the others, perhaps his greatest asset as an artist is his ability to project his weird fantasy universe into the exhibition space.

Images from one show become sculptures in another, turning the third dimension into a battleground between the now-tangible figures and the medium that birthed them. In Know Your Shadow, a mobile of fighter planes wages and all-out dog fight while bombers wreak havoc on the wall surrounding a canvas. In Skinwalker, a pair of boots appears to walk out of a dimensional void in the corner of the gallery while a video installation called Pain depicts tribes of animal-people devouring the few remaining humans in a post-apocalyptic landscape. Willmont’s world is overflowing with allegorical adversaries and it is up to the viewer to declare a victor.