Drifting Net

William T. Wiley is a member of the Bay Area Funk Art movement. Named after the 1967 group show Funk at the Berkeley Art Museum, which included Wiley’s work, Funk Art grew out of both the free expression of beatnik culture and the prominent figurative work of Bay Area artists in the 1950’s. Embracing the definition of funk as something with an unpleasant odor, Funk Art is characterized by an unpolished and idiosyncratic approach to representational work.

In his work, Wiley frequently uses an extensive personal vocabulary of characters and symbols. The two by two checkerboard that repeats in Drifting Net recurs in many works as does the black and white striped line. He thinks of the checkerboard as symbolizing the four members of his family and the line as a land surveyor’s staff, recalling his father’s profession. Wiley also often listens to National Public Radio while he works, letting the stories filter through him and enter the work as punning, fragmented, and layered text. His stream of consciousness images become a mixture of current events, autobiography, personal symbolism, pop culture, and wordplay. Each layer of meaning inflects the others, creating numerous ways of approaching and interpreting the complex work.