ENGAGE Projects is pleased to present This Is Post Theory Art, a solo exhibition by painter, performance artist, and art theorist Adam Daley Wilson. The show’s visual and text-based pieces propose—first—that such a thing as Post-Theory Art may be seen in relation to conceptual art—and second—it can be defined as theory-making by an artist that is not just cognitive but also emotional and sensory-felt—landing in a viewer’s head, heart, and body all at once. Please join us on Friday, June 6th, 5-7pm, for the opening of This Is Post-Theory Art.

The show also proposes that one example of possible art practices in Post-Theory Art is “artist-placed public document art”—an artist creates a theory of public interest, places it into a court—art-as-law—and the court’s response lands not just in the heads, hearts, and lived experiences of the participants, but also in members of the public, if the public issue resonates.

In all of this, Post-Theory Art is proposed as human: When an artist makes a work with their head, heart, and body—all three—and when a viewer then experiences it themselves through all three, then perhaps this is a special human connection that AI is unable to do. If so, Post-Theory Art, by communicating theories through the emotional and sensorial, may be a way to preserve our human theory-making in this new time when AI can now make theories too.

The exhibition traverses styles including large-scale inscription paintings composed of scrawling, layered text as well as precision paintings that pair serene landscapes with the artist’s own truisms. Wilson’s work oscillates between poise and purposeful disruption to keep the viewer on their toes all the way through the gallery.

Daley Wilson’s work is held in private and corporate collections in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Miami, and Chicago. His solo exhibitions have been recognized as “Must See” by Artforum (Chicago, 2021, 2023). More recently, he was selected for EXPO Chicago’s public art programming (2025) and published an initial paper on art theory in the Fine Arts, Aesthetics, and Philosophy Journal of SSRN (2024). Daley Wilson has also served on the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Doctoral Studies in Visual Art (IDSVA), an international PhD program for artists, and he is also a practicing appellate lawyer specializing in Art Law, Constitutional Law, and the Visual Artists’ Rights Act. He also provides pro bono services to artists.

Image: Adam Daley Wilson, Only Some Species Unmarred, 2021, artist's text on collage of appropriated images on aluminum, 82 x 58 in, 208.3 x 147.3 cm