Williams Bones with Flesh 2015

KENT WILLIAMS

BONES WITH FLESH

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550 south guadalupe street santa fe new mexico 87501

505.995.9902

publication by:

EVOKEcontemporary.com

The artist Lucien Freud once remarked that “Being able to draw well is the hardest thing—far harder than painting, as one can easily see from the fact that there are so few great draftsmen compared to the number of great painters.” Contemporary artist Kent Williams says he “absolutely” agrees with Freud. “Drawing,” says Williams, requires one “to tap into a place that’s uniquely taxing, but wonderfully exhausting when things go well.” Does this mean it requires more scrutiny? “Not exactly,” says Williams; “more that it’s intensely meditative. When I draw I need silence, no distractions. It demands a uniquely different kind of focus.” In Bones with Flesh, he explores the human form both literally and metaphorically. “I’ve had a full hanging skeleton for most of my adult life,” says Williams, who purchased it from a junk shop decades ago. “The first time I inquired about it the shopkeeper wouldn’t sell it to me; he said it had sentimental value,” he remembers with a laugh. Williams persisted and eventually the shopkeeper relented; the skeleton, whose name is Ben, has been with the artist ever since. Individual bones appear as adornments in some of the work— draped around the neck and dangling between the breasts of the girl in Osseous Matter. Williams’ oil painting Romantique features a more prominent memento mori, in the form of a skeleton placed in the composition’s lower right corner. “The idea behind Bones with Flesh is a pretty literal interpretation of how I see my work and the importance of drawing, with everything else built on the foundation of solid draftsmanship and design. A good drawing is comprised of personality—or in fact, that’s what makes for good drawing, where one’s personal language develops over time and becomes much more than just an academic foundation to build on.”

Indeed for years Williams’ practice has hinged on an intimacy that depends on—and demands—viewer interaction. Williams says, “Being an artist is typically a pretty lonely profession. The characters or figures in my work, often with their gaze or expressive attitude, have an openness to communication that I relate to. I suppose it’s me coming through really, wanting to engage and asking for attention.” This eagerness for communication translates into figures with penetrative, unambiguously frank gazes, who seem intent on receiving similarly undivided attention from the viewer; it fosters a startling, sometimes agitated sensuality that’s aided by a palette in turns subtle and raucous. Asked about his work’s often striking eroticism, Williams remarks that “People have always said that, and I don’t know, even when I’m painting a landscape they seem to find something erotic in it. It’s part of the way I draw I suppose; of course there are pieces I set out to make directly erotic, but that’s certainly not the case with all of it; it just bubbles up to the surface somehow.” For all its considerable refinement, Kent Williams’ mark-making occurs as independent of strictures of line and form, resulting in compositions that are marvelously unfettered and triumphantly human.

Iris McLister

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Primarily a figurative painter, Williams’ work explores, in both bold and subtle ways, and often through a suggestion of narrative and woven symbolism, the thread of life that ties us together as human beings. Embracing our virtues while not shying away from our faults, he shows us portraits of ourselves, intense and penetrating.

A graduate of The Pratt Institute in New York, Williams, a consummate draftsman and painter, he has realized his work through various other artistic channels as well, that of the illustrated word and the graphic novel (most recently, THE FOUNTAIN with filmmaker Darren Aronofsky), printmaking, photography, design, architecture, and film. A selection of his works on paper, KENT WILLIAMS: DRAWINGS & MONOTYPES, was published in 1991, and KOAN: PAINTINGS BY JON J MUTH & KENT WILLIAMS, was published in 2001. His most recent book, KENT WILLIAMS, AMALGAM: PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS, 1992-2007 is the most comprehensive collection of Williams’ work to date.

Williams is the recipient of a number of awards for his work including The Yellow Kid; Lucca, Italy’s prestigious comics award. In 2001 he was invited to be a fellow at the Sundance Filmmakers Lab in Sundance, UT. Williams returned as a visiting instructor to The Pratt Institute, and has since gone on to teach at The California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA; East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, and The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Valencia, CA. He currently teaches contemporary figurative painting at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, and is Mentor Faculty at Laguna College of Art and Design, Laguna Beach, CA as part of the MFA program.

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Darcy with Bones

oil on clayboard, 24 x 18

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Cover image

Osseous Matter, 2015 oil on linen, 28 x 24

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Tilt, 2013

mixed media on paper, 17 x 14

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Romantique, 2014

oil on canvas, 48 x 48

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Rocket, 2014

oil on canvas, 24 x 18

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Osseous Matter 2, 2015

mixed media on paper, 21 x 18

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Osseous Matter 1, 2015

mixed media on paper, 19 x 16

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Tomorrow

oil on Canvas, 48 x 48

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LaĂŤtitia 2014

oil on canvas, 20 x 20

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Upright

mixed media on paper, 24 x 19

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The Reveal (triptych) 2014

mixed media on paper, 17 x 42

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Lover(s), 2014

mixed media on paper, 17 x 22

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Nude Sitting

mixed media on paper, 22 x 17

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Osseous Matter 3

mixed media on paper, 16 x 21

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Repose with Blue and Rose mixed media on paper, 18 x 24

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The Reveal, study #2

mixed media on paper, 14 x 17

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Headdress, mixed media on paper, 18 x 17

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