William T. WileyArt and Life

layered designs and sketches of animals and meditative positions in a collage format with text
William T. Wiley, Tantrum Art La Grande, 2001. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 96 x 60 inches. San José Museum of Art. Gift of the Lipman Family Foundation, 2004.41.03. Photo by Douglas Sandberg.

As a young boy, William T. Wiley would lie on the floor listening to radio shows and drawing what he was hearing. This practice of artmaking in response to the world around him has continued throughout his life: “When a story or an incident hits me hard enough, I have to do something about it or I want to do something about it. The injustices sometimes feel so overwhelming . . . but I can’t not do it.”1 Tantrum Art La Grande (2001) was made in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. Dense layers of notations—including the ampersand, treble clef, yin-yang symbol, cosmic icons, even Mickey Mouse—and Wiley’s wordplay overwhelm the canvas with a sense of chaos. Its multiplicity visually embodies the text the artist wrote on the canvas: “September 11, the day the earth stood still and went faster.”

  1. William T. Wiley, at the book signing for What’s It All Mean, Sylvia White Gallery, Ventura, California, May 28, 2010, video, 3:07 minutes, available at vimeo.com/12186017. ↩︎