Deneb

William T. Wiley

"Deneb" is the 75th publication by the Print Club of Cleveland.

From a review in the Washington Post: Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post Staff Writer, Friday, September 2, 2005:

"THE ART OF William T. Wiley swirls with clues as to its meaning: punning fragments of text (e.g., "one sighs fits all"), symbols such as figure eights and tic-tac-toe grids, recurring motifs such as human skulls and dunce caps, and mischievous pop-cultural and art-historical references. On view at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, "Current Evince: Selected Prints by William T. Wiley From the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Take "Deneb," for instance, a color lithograph that takes its name from the star that appears in the constellation Cygnus and may, in fact, have long since gone out. On one level, it's a pretty straightforward commentary about the ephemeral nature of things. There's a passage of text, reading in part: "the light that touches our faces has fallen for sixteen thousand years -- maybe there's something behind it, and maybe there isn't." Wiley's art, in a sense, is like that light, and he's like the star. After the artist is gone, he seems to be saying, and all that's left is the picture, we may still be looking at it and trying to figure out the joke."