Joni Mitchell’s song “Both Sides Now” begins with an image of clouds, seen first through the eyes of a child, then through those of a world-weary adult, and finally with a sense of nostalgic reconsideration, causing us to consider the narrative arc of our own life. I’ll admit I never got past seeing clouds through a child’s eyes. The daily drama or serenity of the sky and its infinite stage, the horizon, are an endless source of fascination, wonder, and profound visual pleasure. The sky and the horizon surround us, forming the backdrop of our worlds and their imagined realities throughout the course of our lives. Continuing to marvel at these has led me as an artist to ask: What is it that fascinates me about the sky’s moods? What is it that causes the horizon to be what it is, not yet encountered at all (Heidegger)? How can one make new images of these things, with minimal means, worth looking at and thinking about? How can one make a painting that arrests and fixes a fleeting, unobtainable, unpossessable moment? For some, what is unobtainable and unpossessable—no matter how wondrous or beautiful—is uninteresting. For others, these features make them objects of love. And one way to make art is to paint what one loves.

“Facts become art through love, which unifies them and lifts them to a higher plane of reality.” - Kenneth Clark

Growing up north of Chicago, William Wahlgren developed a fascination with the many aspects and moods of skies and low horizons, whether of the rural Midwest, of that vast and tranquil inland sea, Lake Michigan, or even in 17th-century Dutch painting. A student of traditional Western oil painting materials and techniques, as well as the acute minimalism of certain Asian art, Wahlgren varies his practice between highly realistic representations of the natural environment and more abstract, minimal, and atmospheric imagery. He is a graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University.