Justin Williams: Taipei Dangdai
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COMA is pleased to present a new body of work by Santa Fe-based artist Justin Williams, for the 2024 edition of Taipei Dangdai, on view 9 – 12 May, at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center. The gallery can be found at booth DG04.
After exploring familial and ancestral connections to Egypt and the Mediterranean, ideas of Americana prior to 1984, and representations of domesticity in rural communities, Williams has found a point of amalgamation that draws in all of these thoughts. Presented as both historical accounts and proposed realities these paintings act as odes to small moments, to loved ones and to the nourishment community provides.
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Justin Williams
It’s me really doing that to someone else, 2024
oil, acrylic and pigment on canvas
176.5 x 169.7 cm 69 1/2 x 66 3/4 inThis community and its ability to provide essential interpersonal support and interaction pervades the multi figure works while two paintings, each of a solitary figure and a nod to the artist’s grandparents, permits contemplation and a sense of reprieve. Important visually in that they create a sense of balance, these artworks are also ways of remembering significant people in one’s life.
Williams is a serial collector of stories and memories in the form of either the spoken word or photographs, all of which are distilled into new scenes. Depictions of figures, locations, clothing and actions are changed, combined or deleted. Through this the geographically and chronologically indistinct final result rears as something entirely new, eliciting both empathy and understanding yet retaining its individuality.
Williams understands that his viewer’s have histories in many ways close to his own, deep and multifaceted, and that his painting encourages consideration of lineage and origin and its relevance to the now.
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Artworks
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Installation Views
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