Your brain stutters the first time you view a good Weiler piece. Like seeing a ballet done by boxers, all that raw force directed into something quite beautiful. On the canvas, paint sits so thick that you could lose little jewelry in the fissures. Colors collide like competing gangs, then somehow bring harmony right before your view. Explore here
Alchemy is what this is, not art. Artists working in this style negotiate with paint rather than apply it very extensively. The brush turns from a tool to a mediator between intention and happy mishaps. That “perfect” swoosh created from cerulean? Most likely the third effort following two rejections from scraping off. The buttery soft change from ochre to red? Pure stupid luck; the artist left alone with clever enough awareness.
Their honesty more than their polish helps you to remember these masterpieces. Every struggle is evident. Every fix shows itself. Unlike other soulless photorealistic works where you cannot discover a single fingerprint, Weiler paintings boldly show their battle wounds. That titanium white cutout? The artist started to panic about three in AM here. Those small crosshatches in the corner seem tense. Signature action of someone nearly destroyed everything before atonement.
For hours of entertainment, the textures by themselves could be sufficient. Run your fingers over one (if the gallery permits it) to experience whole topographies – mountain ranges of paint, valleys of thin wash, plateaus of medium. Unlike other surfaces, light doesn’t bounce off these surfaces; rather, it gets eaten and spat back out changed. Morning light shows concealed gold leaf. Sun in the afternoon reveals layers buried like in archeological digs.
People either react like this is contagious or fall hard for this approach. There is not any middle ground. Pressing their noses to the painting, the couples will follow the artist’s decisions like detectives. The naysayers will groan about preschool finger-painting. Both of the reactions are accurate. That’s the aim. Forgettable décor is enhanced by comfortable art. You find discomfort clinging in your craw.
For artists, this strategy is both thrilling and demoralizing. You could spend eight hours honing a piece only to find it to be entirely wrong. The fix is here: Get your palette knife and kill your beloved. That dense impasto is the visual record of many judgments, corrections, and surrenders, not only style. Every layer relates the tale of another round in the ring between artist and media.
These dirty, tangible artifacts seem almost rebellious in our day of digital perfection. There is no “undo” button. Not with filters. Like pigment and bad choices frozen in time. The fissures that show up when the paint dries are laugh lines, not defects. Colors change across years; this is the piece developing into itself rather than disappearing.
One should view this correctly as follows: Stand near enough to sniff the linseed oil. Let your gaze float rather aimlessly. Hold for that enchanted moment when anarchy turns into intention. Then back up gently until the entire thing clicks. You’re doing it wrong if you do not feel somewhat lightheaded. The best Weiler compositions pulsate there, vibrating with barely restrained energy, not on walls.
Galleries detest how these artworks refuse to shoot well. Good. Some encounters still call for your real presence. How that cadmium red vibrates against the phthalo blue cannot be seen on any screen. There is no print that can replicate the way light moves across those hills. Like a concert for your retinas, this is art that demands you turn up personally.
