Shandel Sutherland • October 27, 2025
Numen Paintings by Wil Gardner
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Exhibition at The Gallery at The Palms
A numen is a spiritual force or a divine power, a quiet deity especially believed to inhabit a work of art or a particular object. It is a still and sacred watchful spirit.
Wil Gardner paints with an extraordinary amount of what is termed “duende.” It’s a Spanish word to describe a goblin or internal muse and “tener duende” (to have duende) is to have a heightened state of presence and emotion, expression and authenticity, often connected with a deep awareness, opening oneself to spiritual forces while being extremely present and alert.
His paintings embody visiting deities from realms afar embedding themselves into his canvases and paper reveling their presence. Upon viewing Wil’s paintings, one sees distinct figures appearing out of the darkness as well as the light. These figures present themselves as ghostlike watchful apparitions proclaiming “I am here watching you watching me.” They silently engage us and draw us into their windows of otherness, somewhere else, here, but not here. Perhaps it’s a parallel universe snapshot frozen on canvas and paper. Wil’s paintings professes mystery, symbolism, spiritual connection with the invisible world(s) calling upon us to see.
At times the figures and entities vacate their other worldly backgrounds and landscapes, leaving us symbolic objects like ladders, architecture, altars and odd-looking instrument objects of sorts, dropping clues of the painting’s meaning and message. They become active oracles asking us to identify with their callings.
In T-bone Neumen, we clearly see the frontal face of a dog penetrating our gaze encased in geometric-like armor with the symbol of earth (upside down triangle) shielding its heart. Resting on its head in profile, a helmet of a stylized dog clearly symbolic of a soldier warrior numen dog. The animal looks trapped and resigned.
Magician Numen holds court and stands over a white altar symbol. Its right eye beams through us and the figure floats and drips with power. We stand on the other side of the altar becoming the double-sided meaning of its priestess’s ritual discovering another pair of eyes emanating from its belly. There are three of us present, not two, watching.
Take a very close look, do you see?
Wil’s Numen paintings demand that we take the time to see the layers of meaning, meaning that visits us from a dimension or realm beyond, asking us to carefully listen and see. If we pay close attention these painting begin to speak volumes of their existence and purpose, enlightening us of the numen world.
Elizabeth Rodriguez, Curator
The Gallery at The Palms
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