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Artist Exhibitions:
Selected Recent and Upcoming
Exhibitions:
SOLO SHOW: National Humanities
Center, Research Triangle
Park, NC, Nov, 2008
DUO SHOW: Black Rock Art
Center, Germantown, MD., Oct
17-Nov 14, 2007
Group Summer Show at Visual
Arts Studio, Richmond, VA June
2-August 4, 2007
SOLO SHOW: "Signs of Life"
Trial Lawyers ...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Reviews:
Coming Soon!
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Statement for James E Williams
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Through my pastels, pen and ink drawings and works in graphite and colored pencil, I transform some of those who live in the world as well as its effects on them–and on me–into images. In a sense, my paintings are mirrors, once removed. There is more to them than fur, feathers, scales and wind.
Almost thirty years ago, someone gave me a set of pastels and I experimented briefly with them. At the time, I was more interested in pure drawing, so I continued with graphite and charcoal. My drawings back then were realistic in the normal sense. Gradually I discovered that I could also use inanimate objects and animals, even the ‘impersonal’ forces of nature, to depict human emotions. As my scope increased, I began to use color, in the form of inks and of colored pencil. More and more I created animal forms to represent human beings in various situations, progressively realizing the power of human facial expressions to convey an endless variety of feelings and psychological states. I actually began to perceive the presence of people in forms that were reminiscent of animals, birds or insects. I returned to working in pastels about seven years ago because of their dense, brilliant colors, which I felt most clearly elicited the strength of the experiences I had determined to capture on paper.
When I start a painting, I generally begin with the impression of a person, emotion or event, whether internal or external, remembered or actually present. In the process of evoking the nascent image and putting it down on paper, a metamorphosis from photographic reality to shapes dictated by my intuition occurs. The choice of color follows, borne on the same transformative currents, fueled by the weight of the emotions invoked, the intensity of perception. Drama unfolds in the high voltage generated by near-complementary colors juxtaposed, as well as by lights and darks. In every image, everything is held in the tension of being and striving to be.
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