Painter, poet, curator, and art historian; all are befitting titles that lend a single voice to describe Wesley Rusnell and his work. Rusnell’s first solo exhibitions (1961-1962) were held at the legendary venue of Lawrence Ferlinghettii’s City Lights Books in San Francisco. This experience set him on a course that would soon land him in the vibrant art community of Taos, New Mexico where he received the Helen Wurlitzer Prize for Painting in 1964.

Rusnell was recognized for his works on paper and large-scale paintings of the female nude which celebrate the sensual experience of bold color and its causal relationships within the compositions. It was natural that Rusnell would come to be affiliated with GROUP 7 (Luis Catusco, John DePuy, Beatrice Mandelman, Louis Ribak, Oli Sihvonen, and Remi Templeton) and the Stables Gallery in Taos.

In 1973 Wesley Rusnell was named a Fellow in the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program. Rusnell’s work continued to receive great accolades and was exhibited throughout the southwestern United States and Mexico. In 1976 the cultural community of Roswell, would receive a great asset when Wesley Rusnell joined the Roswell Museum and Art Center as Registrar, and later Curator. Rusnell’s 29-year tenure with the RMAC is a rich history that we, as a community, benefit from today.

In 2006, Rusnell began a new body of work—watercolors on paper that express a dynamic matrix of memory and moment. Rusnell states “I regard my watercolors as aperçus—fleeting glances—recalled at leisure, rendered in a no-technique style. Aperçus: Works of Wesley Rusnell celebrates drawings, watercolors, and oil on linen created over a 41-year period.