By TIM KANE
Special to the Times Union

Caption: Amrose + Sable Photos BILL WILSON'S "Rembrandt and Me," one of his works that riffs on paintings by the Old Masters, is on exhi bit at Amrose + Sable.

     WILSON'S "The Pause" pl;ays off Vermeer with an element of humor. It's on display at Amrose + Sable in Albany.

Although it's not a retrospective, the Bill Wilson exhibit at Amrose + Sable Gallery in Albany offers an important look at a well-regarded artist fighting Parkinson's disease who rarely shows his work publicly.      The show, featuring 15 paintings on canvas and a selection of other works, is at the Hudson Street gallery until June 30. It focuses on the years from 1979 to 1995, when Wilson was infatuated with riffing on Renaissance and 17th-century masterpieces, creating immaculate still lifes and portraits infused with his own modern impulses. Wilson, 76, now retired, was a founding faculty member of the Master of Fine Arts program at the University at Albany. Throughout his 55-year career, he has dabbled in myriad styles. However, he has always returned to Vermeer, Rembrandt and Velasquez, among others, to satisfy his mischievous urge to "play around" with them.      His Vermeer-inspired "The Pause" (2002) has a Dutch girl in quiet repose on par with the original, but she holds a marijuana joint. "Dog On It" (1986) is the artist's take on Portormo's portraiture of Lorenzo De Medici with the carcass of a dead dog splattered right in the middle of it - a jarring scene that is both serene and violent.      Two of the strongest paintings, "The Lace Maker" (1979) and "Woman at the Window" (1980) seamlessly merge contemporary and Renaissance styles. From a distance, both appear to be made with the heavy impasto brushstrokes of the abstract expressionists, rendering the subjects faceless. But at close view, they have a sheen similar to the works they parody, which were created by the greats centuries ago using precise techniques.      For an artist who continues to explore various mediums and genres, the reinterpreted classics are one of the few constants in a career defined by restlessness. He keeps coming back to them because they are a test.      "To see if you can do what they did and then have a little fun with it," Wilson said with a slight chuckle during a recent interview. "I don't know if there's any deeper meaning to them."      The Columbia County resident is still working about four to five hours a day despite having Parkinson's. He's currently doing smaller works measuring less than 2 feet-by-3 feet, moving away from larger paintings in general. "It's not because of the Parkinson's," Wilson said of his focus on smaller works. "It's just where I'm at."      He's only made a handful of his "classics" in the last decade, with the most recent, "Vermeer's Milkmaid" (2005), included in the show.      Along with the paintings, the exhibit has recent sketches and a nifty impressionistic series of head-sized caricatures on slate created in 2005-06 that provides a counterpoint to the photorealistic detail of the paintings.      The sketches show a rawness not found in the paintings. Graphic nude figures hang from barbed wire restraints, while a semi-skeletal self-portrait oozes with blood vessels, tissue and veins. Meanwhile, the oil-painted caricatures of such luminaries as Einstein and Marx are a dose of tongue-in-cheek humor.      The roughly two-dozen drawings and 11 caricatures illustrate another constant in Wilson's work: dark humor. These pieces are in contrast to a new series of colorful, cheery landscapes not in the show that Wilson, in a typical about-face, is currently working on.      "I've been accused of being morbid, but don't think that's the case," he says of the responses he receives on his darker creations laced with gallows humor. "I've done a lot of different things."           Tim Kane is a freelance writer living in Albany and a regular contributor to the Times Union.

<%=hi%>Think Visually

Factbox:  <%=hi%>Art exhibit "BILL WILSON"      What : Exhibition of paintings on canvas and slate, and drawings by University at Albany professor emeritus Where: Amrose + Sable Gallery, 306 Hudson Ave., Albany When: Through June 30 Gallery hours: 5-8 p.m. Thursday-Friday; 2-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday Admission: Free Info : (607) 437-6977; http:// www.amrosesablegallery.com/