About Adam Daley Wilson

Adam Daley Wilson (b. 1971) is a self-taught conceptual artist represented by ENGAGE Projects Gallery in Chicago. He lives and works in Portland Maine.

His work manifests in oil painting, installations, video, and performance. He is also an emerging art theorist.

Daley Wilson’s practice blends cognitive and intuitive processes where he uses language in both legible texts and abstract personal writing systems to experiment with meaning-making and viewer interpretation.

His works are informed by his traditional education (Stanford Law, University of Pennsylvania) and his bipolar 1: Neurologically, when in hypomanias, his naturally high levels of dopamine and serotonin cause increased electrical connectivity in the frontal and temporal lobes, causing increased abilities to see relations, connections, and associations between things normally seen as far apart.

Daley Wilson’s works are in collections in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Miami, and Chicago, and both solo shows so far were Artforum “Must See” shows in Chicago (2021, 2023).

His work in art theory and art philosophy includes a top-10 paper in the Fine Arts, Aesthetics, and Philosophy Journals of SSRN (2024), and he has served on the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Doctoral Studies in Visual Art, an international PhD program for artists. He continues to brief issues in Art Law, Constitutional Law, the First Amendment, and the Visual Artists’ Rights Act.

On the basis of his shows, the Berlin-based advisory Artfacts lists him in the top 5% of artists associated with post-conceptualism, conceptual painting, text-based art, and activist art.

As a self-taught artist indebted to mentors since his unexpected start in 2014, after a meds change by his psychiatrist, he informally mentors emerging artists in the US and several countries.

Categories of Theory Art and Post-Theory Pieces at ENGAGE Projects Gallery Chicago

Oil Text Paintings

Abstract Personal Writing System Paintings

Oil Text Paintings On Photography

Installations and Performance

Selected Press and Publications

Second solo show THIS IS TEXT BASED ART featured in Mousse Magazine (Italy) in its “curated roundup of the best contemporary art exhibitions and events held by galleries, museums, and institutions in town during [EXPO Chicago 2023],” 4/10/23

Second solo show THIS IS TEXT BASED ART on Artforum’s must see list, 2023

First solo show ALREADY GONE on Artforum’s must see list, 2021

First solo show ALREADY GONE reviewed in New Art Examiner, 3/21

NBC New Center Maine features, 2/16/21 and 2/23/21

Conceptual Theory Art as a Method for Interdisciplinary Research, Hypothesis, and Critical Analysis Both Within and Beyond Traditional Western Social Sciences (August 01, 2024). Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4913371

Selected Post-Theory Performance Pieces and Happenings 

If You Let Yourself Think About It (Theory Art Piece 1). Artist’s physical act of placing a VARA-qualifying text-based visual artwork, about a social justice legal theory of first impression in the United States, within the Supreme Court of a State, causing the justices to be both audience and actors in a happening about journalism as art and legal theory as art, 2023-2024.

Theory As Art, Journalism As Art, Law As Art (Theory Art Pieces 2, 3, 4). Ongoing placements of VARA-qualifying text artworks within judicial branches and courts, each causing happenings within courts as to the art of journalism, the art of law, and theory as art, 2023-2026.

Look At What We Have Created II. Live creation of personal writing system painting and happening with roughly 20 viewer-participants, second solo show, during EXPO Chicago, 2023.

Do You Own Conceptual Ownership? 4-day performance with video, installation, tangible art ownership experiment, and conceptual social justice ownership experiment. Guest artist project by invitation. The Other Art Fair New York, Nov. 8-11, 2018.

Some Feelings And Thoughts I’ll Have Any Second. 4-day performance with installation and conceptual video. The Other Art Fair New York, Nov. 18-22, 2017.

Look At What We Have Created. 12.25-hour performance walk through New York City, overnight, playing 6 tracks of audio from artist’s backpack, creating layers of words from academics personally known by the artist discussing issues from mass incarceration to LGBTQ+ rights, until the overlapping audio layers rendered the spoken words meaningless, Nov. 22-23, 2017.