Enid Williams Boldly Goes
By Wim Roefs
Enid
Williams’ paintings invariably draw attention from people looking through the if
ART Gallery windows, pulling folks of all ages and backgrounds inside.
“Look,
donuts.”
“Life
savers.”
“It’s
like the universe. Space.”
“Or
microcosms.”
“That
must be a lot of work.”
“Does
she paint each one by hand?”
“Each
one” refers to the circular and oval shapes of different sizes, colors and
density or translucency, typically with a hollow center, with which Williams
builds her compositions. “As an artist,” she says, “I am interested in slowing
the viewer’s gaze by creating an image that requires more careful engagement.”
In 2012, she told an interviewer: “I appreciate
any commentary but I enjoy it when viewers draw parallels from other disciplines
– science, music or others. My titles often derive from other disciplines as
well … I enjoy titles that work on different levels, when possible. The visual
and metaphorical implications are more compelling.”
Williams’ paintings are simultaneously grand and
detailed, the details never getting lost in the overall composition or obscuring
it. The patterns seem as random as they are deliberate, suggesting chaos and
chance where there’s clarity and a system – one that develops as the painting takes
shape in Williams’ studio. Clearly defined circular shapes dart around in front
of fainter ones in the back, grounded, the whole moving every which way without
being all over the place.
Williams uses a broad range of colors, especially
for the larger paintings, nevertheless achieving great color cohesion while
moving the overall pallet from one painting to the next. Each painting’s “white
void is very specific,” she said in 2012 of the compositions’ background. “The
quiet of that space makes the noise more audible.” The works’ scale shifts
between paintings, changing the nature and intensity of their radiating energy.
Imploding or exploding, Williams’ paintings boldly go.
“My
work is an inquiry into the physical and intellectual process of perception,
especially the manner in which we read and understand pictorial space,”
Williams says. “I rely on
a complex ordering of form and color to create
elaborate visual scenarios that
appear to be in continual flux. There is
little evidence of pictorial hierarchy.
Instead, the optical effects create an
ambiguous space, both undermining and
heightening our desire for logic and
order.”
“My
vocabulary of small circular shapes is meant to evoke a
sense of playfulness,
while also reflecting a certain temporality of
appearances. In this way, meaning
might manifest itself in a sense of time and
place.”
Charts
that test for colorblindness were the initial inspiration for the paintings.
Any writings addressing perceptual phenomena interest Williams. “The broader
trajectory of painting’s history is also important and inescapable,” she said
in 2012. Referring to Abstract Expressionism, she added: “I embrace the
lineage, but my marks are deliberately un-heroic. It’s my tongue-in-cheek
commentary on how my work both derives from and stands apart from the
particulars of Ab-Ex.”
–
Wim Roefs is the owner of if ART Gallery.
