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Biography

Donald Roller Wilson was born in Houston, Texas and is currently lives and works in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Roller Wilson is a Gothic storyteller with the phenomenal technique and precision of an old master, animating his paintings with finely wrought clothed chimpanzees, dogs, and cats, wooden matches, dill pickles, asparagus stalks, olives, and cigarette butts. He creates characters like Cookie the Baby Orangutan, Jane the Pug Girl, Jack the Jack Russell "Terror," Loretta the Actress Cat, Miss Dog America, and Patricia the Seeing Eye Dog of Houston. Each spring from the artist's hyper-vivid imagination into lengthy caption fantasies and onto canvases that require an enormous amount of time to complete, all painted in vivid detail, reminiscent of the 16th century Dutch masters. Roller Wilson's recognizable works hang in the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL; Whitney Museum, New York, New York; Bank of America, San Francisco, CA; and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden- Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.