Justin Williams: Waiting for Lavender
-
COMA is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Australian-born, Santa Fe-based artist Justin Williams (b.1984) titled Waiting for Lavender, on view Friday 31 January - 22 February. This is the artist's fourth solo presentation with the gallery and taking place at our new gallery location.
In his latest exhibition Waiting for Lavender, Justin Williams delves into themes of migration, belonging, and the search for a place to call home. Drawing on familial history, his upbringing in the foothills of Victoria’s Dandenong Ranges, and recent time spent in Paris and Santa Fe, Williams welcomes viewers into a world where identity, family, and the quest for stability intertwine. Waiting for Lavender is a profound exploration of the personal and collective experience of finding a place to call one’s own, and the great lengths taken to achieve this.
-
Many figures that inhabit this body of work are in a state of movement, travelling or migrating from one place to another, and moving through a changing world as they attempt to find grounding. In other scenes the figures are firmly settled in their surroundings, having found and made a home now populated by personal objects they have accumulated throughout their journeys - a wooden mask, a quilt, a painting - laid like bricks that have built the foundations of their present. -
Artworks
-
-
Justin Williams
Cocoon and shell, 2024
oil, acrylic and pigment on canvas
196 x 205 cm 77 1/8 x 80 3/4 inFollowing the recent birth of his first child, Lavender, this body of work also carries an important personal significance for Williams. This journey of fatherhood - one that brings both joy and the weight of responsibility - parallels the themes of waiting, homecoming and belonging in these paintings. For Williams, the arrival of his daughter symbolises a new phase of life in which finding a sense of place becomes even more crucial and a sentiment he now must share and navigate as a family unit. As a parent the quest to build a secure, loving home for the next generation takes on an entirely new dimension. The exhibition’s title, Waiting for Lavender, reflects this anticipation, as well as the slow, tender process of nurturing and preparing a space for both growth and rest. Williams’ work has often reflected on his complex identity, shaped by his family’s history in pre-World War II Alexandria, Egypt. However, in Waiting for Lavender, he shifts a part of his focus forward to better understand and prepare for what is yet to come. -
Installation Views
