Ochi Gallery is pleased to present William T. Wiley: The Goat & The Raven at 350 Walnut Avenue. The show will run from July 22 – August 15, 2011 with an artist reception on August 5, 5-8 PM.

Entertaining and gently provoking viewers to look more deeply at the world around them, William Wiley introduces Goat and Raven in a series of drawings, watercolors, paintings and constructions. The dynamic duo engages in existential musings ranging in topic from the state of the planet to the meaning of modern art. These discussions are riddled with Wiley’s signature puns, manipulated language and humor set into his works recognized by a 2009-10 retrospective originated by The Smithsonian American Art Museum. Though the goat has appeared in Wiley’s previous work, in his most recent form he honors the late Robert Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg’s most famous Combine, Monogram (1955- 59), consisted of a stuffed angora goat surrounded by a rubber tire. Wiley’s goat, who appears personified as a dandy, is often identified as “Goat with Attire,” (Goat with a tire). Goat is Wiley’s way of honoring a fellow artist whose work he admired. Though darker and more obscure, Raven is a character whose presence is also weighted with meaning for Wiley. He explains that “[Ravens] seem a little more conscious than other creatures out there…there’s something a little more than a bird going on.” Wiley acknowledges the mythological importance of ravens to indigenous cultures and in the “Goat and Raven” series the Raven’s personality is wise, if not slightly cynical.
The endearing Goat and Raven characters bring wit and humor to a multitude of topics and
become, like other of Wiley’s favorite figures, vehicles for expressing whatever is on his
mind. As distinct personalities, the Goat and Raven act as Wiley’s alter egos, inspiring us to
ask the hard questions and to create our own vision of the world.