Win Wallace: Before the Darkness Settles

WiN WALLACE: Before the darkness settles

September 21, 2024 - October 26, 2024

Press Release

(Dallas) Ro2 Art is excited to present “Before the Darkness Settles,” a new exhibition by Texas-based artist Win Wallace, whose intricate drawings explore the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Known for his meticulously detailed pencil, conte, and charcoal portraits, Wallace creates fictional characters that exist within dynamic, surreal landscapes, blending elements of classical portraiture with contemporary themes. His work often features masked figures and animal companions, exploring identity, perception, and the transient nature of existence.
Influenced by Mexican Muralists and visionary artists, Wallace’s pieces are layered with hidden dramas and rich narrative complexity, offering viewers a sense of exploration with each detail. This exhibition invites contemplation on the cycles of life and decay, challenging viewers to find their own stories within Wallace’s evocative art. On view from September 21 to October 26, 2024, at Ro2 Art in Dallas, “Before the Darkness Settles” provides a profound reflection on the tension between presence and absence in our ever-changing world.
Press Release

About the Artist

Win Wallace was born in South Carolina and is currently based in Lockhart, Texas. His recent practice focuses on pencil, conte and charcoal portraits, as well as ink drawings. Since high school, Wallace played in bands and made scores of flyers for underground punk and noise rock shows. Over the years, he made posters for bands like the Melvins, Neurosis, Sleep, Helios Creed, The Jesus Lizard, DMBQ, Animal Collective, Scratch Acid, The Dead Kennedys
and many others. He moved to Austin in the mid 1990’s to study drawing at the University of Texas. His drawings are influenced by history, art history, dreams, nature and pathos. The fictional portraits illuminate the unique and ephemeral beauty of the individual as an integrated part of the natural world. Wallace has exhibited his work extensively in Texas, throughout the United States and internationally. Win draws every day.

ARTIST Statement

I make drawings on paper with simple materials. Through scale and detail, the work strives for realism while disregarding any photographic weight of that word. Beginning with the familiar construction of classical portraiture, I draw fictitious individuals. Characters that are as rooted in art history as they are nestled among the flora and fauna of the natural world. This sense of interconnectedness to our surroundings, along with our past and present, seems so unfortunately out of step in the modern era. We hurtle forward, allowing technological advancements to disavow us of such notions. The discomfort of this inconsistency is the foundation for drawing something that celebrates inimitable, flawed and fleeting beauty. The full ecstatic bloom of a Bearded Iris only lasts a few days, which isn’t truly so very different from our own time here. I labor to depict every leaf and blade of grass with the same determination as the formal subject of all my work, because all of life endures the same cycle of flowering, faltering and finally fading away.