Wesley Wheeler describes himself as a "later blooming artist." He spent his career as a Fortune 300 executive, but painted "in the closet" for much of his career in pursuit of a passion inherited from his mother, a portrait artist, and his uncle, a former curator for the Rockefeller Foundation and the Henry Ford Museum. Following retirement, Wheeler made his exhibition debut in 2005 with the Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson, NY. He has since exhibited in Massachusetts, New York City, and Washington, DC.

Wheeler's work is influenced by Mark Rothko's atmospheric canvases and by the color palettes of Hopper, van Gogh and others. Nonetheless, Wheeler paints in his own individual style, aiming to create work that is "as little derivative in its nature as possible."

Wheeler's work falls into two principal categories: color field abstraction, inspired by cityscapes, landscapes, or seascapes, and what the artist calls "narrative abstraction," in which he uses graphite, charcoal, and pastel pencil to draw recognizable forms within the layers of a more traditionally abstract environment. His works are intended to suggest a story, a memory, or a feeling supplied by the viewer.

With an exquisite instinct for balancing composition, color and energy, Wheeler creates templates on which each of us may overlay our own sense of mood and meaning. In this way, he creates works of enduring appeal, as the "message" (to the extent one can fairly apply that term) changes with the perceptions, personal experience and current mood of the viewer. The paintings change for us as we change, and so they never become stale.

A long-time native of northern New Jersey, Wheeler currently resides in Ballston Spa, NY.