Kent Williams
Primarily a figurative painter, Kent Williams 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. With a career behind him that has seen notable forays into the illustrated word and the graphic novel, Williams has maintained a passionate relationship with drawing and the ways it directly informs painting, which he sees as the premier medium of artistic production. As one critic has pointed out, for Williams “the tactile qualities of the painted surface, the mark-making itself, plays as big a role in the resonance of a work as its narrative aspects.” Acknowledging the grand history of painting and the importance it still plays to this day in the ways we see ourselves, Williams has long considered the human figure to be the obvious vehicle to represent the human condition.
Solo exhibitions of Williams’ work have been presented at the Sundance Institute, Blanc Gallery in Manila,Galerie Daniel Maghen in Paris and Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles, among other venues. His paintings have …
Primarily a figurative painter, Kent Williams 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. With a career behind him that has seen notable forays into the illustrated word and the graphic novel, Williams has maintained a passionate relationship with drawing and the ways it directly informs painting, which he sees as the premier medium of artistic production. As one critic has pointed out, for Williams “the tactile qualities of the painted surface, the mark-making itself, plays as big a role in the resonance of a work as its narrative aspects.” Acknowledging the grand history of painting and the importance it still plays to this day in the ways we see ourselves, Williams has long considered the human figure to be the obvious vehicle to represent the human condition.
Solo exhibitions of Williams’ work have been presented at the Sundance Institute, Blanc Gallery in Manila,Galerie Daniel Maghen in Paris and Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles, among other venues. His paintings have been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., Duke University’s Museum of Art in Durham, and Northern Arizona University Art Museum and Galleries in Flagstaff.
Courtesy of 101/EXHIBIT
101/EXHIBIT, Los Angeles, CA
Evoke Contemporary, Santa Fe, New Mexico
