Bio

J. Chris Wilson is originally from Waycross and St. Simons Island, Georgia, and is married to Kathleen and has a son Matthew and a daughter Singleton. Wilson has been on the faculty of Barton College in Wilson, North Carolina from 1974-2012 and now is continuing at the college as artist in residence. He earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Georgia, where he also completed post-graduate work, with Lamar Dodd as his major professor. Wilson was awarded the Jefferson-Pilot Faculty Member of the Year for 2012-2011, The Gertrude S. Carraway Award, from The Preservation Foundation of North Carolina for 2011, the Sears-Roebuck Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership Award in 1990, Visiting Professor of Art at Aichi Shukutoku University in Nagoya, Japan, in 1994, sabbaticals and creative releases in 1990, 1993, 2003-4, 2008, and 2011-2012. Wilson has served as Chair of the Department of Art, Director of the Barton Museum, Regional Director of The Scholastic Art Awards for Eastern North Carolina, and the Curator of the Paula W. Patterson Collection at Barton College. Wilson has been involved in symposia, community presentations, and publications on art, decorative arts, and historic preservation and has engaged in extensive community service including serving on the boards of Edgecombe County Cultural Arts Council, The Arts Council of Wilson, the Board of Advisors for Preservation/NC, and now serves on the Board of the Blount Bridgers Museum/Hobson Pittman Memorial Foundation, and the Board of Directors of The Preservation Foundation of North Carolina.

His work has been shown in galleries and museums throughout the southeast including The Albany Museum of Art, The Burroughs-Chapin Museum of Art, The Spartanburg Museum of Art, The Fayetteville Museum of Art, and The Greenville Museum of Art and in exhibitions at Blue Spiral Gallery, The Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art and in the offices of the Lieutenant Governor Beverly Perdue. Wilson has been represented by galleries including Somerhill Gallery, ERL Gallery, City Art Gallery, Flanders Art Gallery, and Carteret Contemporary Art Gallery. Wilson is represented in public, corporate, and private collections including R. J. Reynolds, Poyner and Spruill, Rocky Mount Medical Park, Preservation/NC, Willis N. Hackney Library, Highlands Country Club, The Lodge on St. Simons Island, GA, Wilson County Public Library, Braswell Memorial Library, and Purdue Pharmaceuticals and in over 200 private collections in the United States, England, Saudi Arabia, and Japan.