Adam Daley Wilson - Appellate Law and Public Interest Advocacy

PUBLIC INTEREST ADVOCACY WORK

2024-2025 Overview

Current legal focus — Misconduct by attorneys in courts — especially as to exploitation of mental illness, stigma, and harm to the rule of law.

Current art theory focus — Post-theory art and artist-placed public document art as public advocacy through art-as-law.

Current conceptual art show — This Is Post-Theory Art — June 6 - July 18, Engage Projects Gallery Chicago.

May 2025 — Gallery Press Release:

This Is Post-Theory Art

Adam Daley Wilson

June 6 – July 18, 2025

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 show presents three types of work: (1) Large-scale oil-stick “inscribed paintings” and “new cave paintings” with layers of text in the artist’s loose handwriting, part of the artist’s personal writing system; (2) precise visual-text pieces; and (3) smaller works that bring together the elements of the show. Daley Wilson has also researched and written a number of informal articles about Post-Theory Art that can be searched on Google / Bing.

Daley Wilson is a self-taught artist with degrees from Stanford Law and U. Penn. His work draws from his self-study of conceptual art history, text-based art in other cultures and times, semiotics, and art theory. He makes his work during his creative hypomanias that arise from his mental illness of bipolar 1. This is his third solo show. The first two were “Must See” by Artforum (Chicago, 2021, 2023). Most recently, his work was selected for EXPO Chicago public art (2025). He practices law (constitutional, public interest), mentors artists pro bono, and serves on non-profit boards (academia, local parks, and mental illness stigma advocacy run by teens).

More details below.

Update May 2025

Current public art — via the EXPO Chicago international art fair and the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs:

We All Like To Look Away Sometimes (I Feel So Much Better Now)

Click here for link

Update March 2025 — some current areas of art and law advocacy:

Mental Illness Stigma Public Interest Advocacy — click here

Lawyer Misconduct Public Interest Advocacy — click here

Recent News Articles About Public Advocates In The Mental Health Policy Space

New York Times, May 7, 2025 —https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/07/nyregion/nyc-public-advocate-rajkumar-sooknanan-mental-health.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FU8._VuC.BsGahltJag78&smid=url-share

Prior Health-Related Non-Profit Board Service

• Past Board Member, Peaks Island Health Center, Portland Maine, 2012-2013. The Health Center’s mission is “to support the continuing operation of the Center in connection with Maine Medical Partners so that our community can access high quality health care close to home. We also give scholarships to islanders who are pursuing healthcare related education, organize vaccination clinics on Peaks, and facilitate educational programming.” 

• Past Board Member, The Yellow Tulip Project, Portland Maine, 2020-2023, Board Chair 2023. Founded and run by college and high school students, The Yellow Tulip Project’s “mission is to smash the stigma surrounding mental illness and to build a community of people who realize that hope happens when youth and community leaders work together. We hope that someday mental illness will be as normal to talk about as any physical illness, and are dedicated to making this goal a reality.”

Prior Art-Related Non-Profit Board Service

• Past Member of the Board of Trustees, The Institute For Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA.edu), 2019-2021. An international PhD program, IDSVA’s “mission is to operate a school of graduate studies providing education in philosophy, aesthetics, art theory, and similar disciplines related to the visual arts. The mission includes the provision of doctoral studies to holders of the MFA or the master’s degree in a related field, the conferring of PhD degrees, and otherwise providing education and training related to the arts.”

Some of the Underlying Art Theory

• What is a definition of Post-Theory Art? — Post-Theory Art may be defined as a category of conceptual art where the artist makes theories as text-based art that also work as activist art and performance art about public interest issues.

• What is a definition of Artist-Placed Public Document Art? — Artist-Placed Public Document Art may be defined as: an artist makes a theory as text-based art, places it within a legal system, and that act causes an institutional response—the court and the parties are now required to respond. Artist-Placed Public Document Art is art that is also a valid legal document that combines text-based art, conceptual art, activist art, and performance art with public interest law and public advocacy.