Wilson mostly keeps himself tucked away in Fayetteville, Ark., with wife Kathleen and poodle Judy. I'm not tempted by . . . I may have stayed by default, but it's a blessing. Those in his paintings, he says, ''do exist in my mind . . . Wilson's recognizable works have hung in the Brooklyn Museum, Chicago Art Institute and New York's Whitney Museum.
Critical opinion varies on such idiosyncratic work.
One utterly forgives the painter's self-indulgences for one reason . . . Wilson's obvious perfectionism is partly drawn from traditional still life and his flowers are as voluptuous and as painstakingly rendered as anybody's. He's ''very attracted to French neo-classicism, particularly Ingres . . . Wilson's more likely to paint an oddly unsettling portrait of Naughty Betty holding a giant asparagus. That way, he says, they can switch to whatever fits the scenario.