A Long Overdue Celebration

A

LONG Credit: The Life and Death of

OVERDUE CELEBRATION

Self-taught artist Charles Williams’ (1942-1998) artwork is having a homecoming in Lexington, KY this summer – with the debut of an exhibition titled Life and Death of Charles Williams at University of Kentucky.

Charles Williams (1942–1998) was born in Blue Diamond, KY, but lived most of his life in Lexington, KY. As a child, he taught himself to draw by copying comic book figures like Superman, Dick Tracy, and Captain Marvel.

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Charles Williams gallery at University of Kentucky’s Art Museum, curated by Phillip March Jones)

Working as a full-time janitor at the IBM Corporation in Lexington, Williams continued to develop his artistic practice, creating comic narratives, including the Amazing Spectacular Captain Soul Superstar, a caped superhero who fights against the perpetrators of the intergalactic slave trade.

His mini-series, the Cosmic Giggles, recounts the experiences of aliens visiting Earth, where they

observe

racism,

venereal

disease,

economic inequality, and other problems specific to our planet.

Williams worked avidly until his untimely death in 1998, the result of AIDS-related complications and starvation. A few months later, an organization called A Moveable Feast Lexington was founded in his honor and tasked itself with providing hot meals to people living with HIV/AIDS in the region.

Ignored and unrecognized most of his short life, this exhibition marks a posthumous celebration for the artist, whose works have never been exhibited in his hometown but whose impact has been felt for decades. After his death from AIDS-related complications, A Moveable Feast Lexington was founded in his honor and continues to provide hot meals to people in Lexington living with HIV/AIDS. Williams’ array of complex mixed-media sculptures, photography, comics, and paintings, which provide social commentary on issues including racism, economic inequality, and slavery, are on display now – November 26th. The show was previously exhibited at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center in Georgia and Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago.