Jarrod Wilson
Jarrod Wilson’s subject matter of the American automobile comes from a lifelong love of cars. His father’s work was always in some form automotive, allowing him to grow up with a different perspective than most. “He was a parts department manager, a parts distributor, a car salesman owning his own car lot and later a purchasing agent for a Ford dealer,” Wilson says. “Though, his life revolved around the car he did not wish for me to have anything to do with such. However, despite his desire, I found a way to indulge my love of the car with my chosen vocation by making the American automobile my subject matter, making it my mainstay for the last seven years.”
All of Wilson’s paintings are fueled by his lifetime of shared memories of the auto industry with his dad. “I spent summers and weekends picking up cars with him from auto auctions and other dealers, taking trips to parts counters and junkyards and meeting some of the finest country mechanics to ever wield a wrench. The good memories linger still, so does the love of the automobile. Marrying those good memories with my art is the most natural thing that I have ever done,” he explains.
Wilson is a signature member of the Virginia Watercolor Society and is a veteran public school art teacher who is in his 18th year with the Galax City Public Schools in Virginia. In 2016 Wilson earned a Master of Fine Arts in watermedia, and he also studied under internationally known artist Z.L. Feng.