Exhibition details
James Williams II is a curator and interdisciplinary artist who works across painting, sculpture, and photography. He has exhibited widely in Baltimore, Chicago, and NYC. Williams is the recipient of the MFA Joan Mitchell Foundation award and is a semifinalist for the 2022 Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize. Originally from Upstate New York, Williams now lives in Baltimore. He received his MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art at Maryland Institute College Art (MICA) and currently teaches at MICA.
March 25 – April 16, 2022
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Lecture
James Williams II, Eve, 2021, velcro, resin, oil on canvas and panel, 16 x 12 in.
Works on display
James Williams II is a curator and interdisciplinary artist who works across painting, sculpture, and photography. He has exhibited widely in Baltimore, Chicago, and NYC. Williams is the recipient of the MFA Joan Mitchell Foundation award and is a semifinalist for the 2022 Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize. Originally from Upstate New York, Williams now lives in Baltimore. He received his MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art at Maryland Institute College Art (MICA) and currently teaches at MICA.
Williams’s work uses satire and visual riposte to challenge the ambiguity of the Black construct as both an object and abject. What started as an inquiry about the discursive formation of the Black race by his then five-year-old daughter followed his investigation into the subject within American society both past and present. The Black construct is complicated, fluid, and unreliable with anthropomorphic qualities. The “truth” of race and its complexities are intrinsic to our lives, yet as his daughter reminds him daily, it's not as complex as we make it. The use of various photographic, technology, and fiber materials blended within the painting is an attempt to find a childlike understanding of the inaccuracies and indecisiveness of racial classifications of Black Americans and the achromatic color they both share.