Megan Williams (artist)

Megan Williams (born 1956) is a contemporary artist who creates wall drawings, three-dimensional drawings, and traditional sculpture.

Megan Williams
Born1956 (age 64–65)
Cleveland, Ohio
NationalityAmerican
Alma materCalifornia Institute of the Arts, B.F.A., 1978
Known forContemporary art
Notable work
Helter Skelter
MovementExpressionism
Surrealism

Early life and education

Born in 1956 in Cleveland, Ohio, in the U.S.,[1] Williams earned a B.F.A. in 1978 from the California Institute of the Arts.[2] As of 1990, Megan Williams was married, and had a son.[2]

Critical reception

Williams' earliest exhibits were collaborative. Mark Rosenthal of University of California's Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive commented in 1978 that in Williams' collaboration with Jon Borofsky, "the artists worked on each other's images in the manner of participants in a jazz rhythm section who respond to one another's musical thoughts, alternately leading or following."[3]

As early as 1983, art critics explicitly reviewed Williams' work favorably. John Russell of The New York Times called her an "artist of true quality".[4] By 1993, Roberta Smith of The New York Times characterized her work as "figurative political art", comparing the "animated autonomy of her lines" with that of Betsy Friedman Murunashi-Lederman and Nicole Eiseman.[5]

The Santa Monica Museum of Art 1990 description of Williams' wall drawing, Totem, pointed out she "took advantage of the freedom of working on a large scale and in an ephemeral situation".[6] Williams herself explained her wall art: "I see an entire room as a blank sheet of paper, allowing the viewer to exist in it, rather than outside of it. It places the work in closer proximity to the psychological space with which we surround ourselves."[6]

Christopher Miles of ArtForum in 2003 called Williams a "master of laugh-till-you-hurt images that invite our projections like Rorschach blots".[7] In 2008 he observed that Williams' practice was "turning the inner outward", a defining characteristic of her work, noting she "substitutes the goofy for the surreal, effecting what is indeed a kind of expressionism, but one that is as self-effacing and comic as it is assertive and heroic."[8] Miles identified two modes that Williams uses: the first, lighthearted, optimistic contemplation; and the second, humor in a cartoon format to suggest "violence and angst".[8] He wrote, "Williams' images, while fantastic and fairy-taleish in their specifics, are quite the opposite in their tenor and implications."[8]

In 2008, critic Holly Myers of the Los Angeles Times described Williams' style as "unmistakable": using cartoonish forms such as human figures and anthropomorphized buildings; suggesting "rubbery agility, giddy pictorial buoyancy and an often furious sense of internally generated motion".[9] A gallery's 2008 description of her work said it was "populated by careening forces and dyspeptic explosions," noting one work was "sci-fi and apocalyptic", an "outburst of atomic proportions".[10]

ArtsBlock at the University of California, Riverside, characterized Williams in 2014 as "a painter who uses cartoon imagery in her paintings that depict characters with riotous, bad mannered attitudes".[11]

Selected exhibitions

Williams has exhibited at multiple venues:

  • Arena 1 Gallery, Santa Monica, "On the Wall", 2011[12]
  • Carl Berg Gallery, Los Angeles, "Purge, 2008"[13]
  • Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock[12]
  • Christopher Grimes Gallery[14]
  • The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.[10]
  • The Drawing Center, New York, "Selections, Fall 1991"[10][15]
  • Japanese American National Museum[12]
  • John Post Lee Gallery, New York[5]
  • Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art[10]
  • Museum of Contemporary Art, "Helter Skelter", 1992[9][16]
  • Orange County Museum of Art[10]
  • Otis/Parsons, Los Angeles[16]
  • Santa Monica Museum of Art, "Drawn from Memory", 1990[17]
  • Sweeney Art Gallery[12]
  • University Art Museum at UC Santa Barbara[16]
  • University of California, Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive[18]
  • Sweeney Art Gallery, UCR ArtsBlock, "Figurative Language"[11]

Awards

1992 Art Matters Fellowship[19]

1997 California Community Foundation's Fellowships for Visual Artists[10][20]

References
  1. "The Los Angeles / New York Exchange". issuu. 2014. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  2. "SMMoA Artist Project Series - Megan Williams - Artist Bio". Santa Monica Museum of Art. October 25, 1990. Archived from the original on November 7, 2016. Retrieved November 7, 2016. Note: Click on "Megan Williams" icon, 3rd row, 5th from left; then the "[go to ARTIST BIO]" link, bottom left side of the page.
  3. Rosenthal, Mark (June 1, 1978). "BAMPFA - Art Exhibitions - Jon Borofsky and Megan Williams / MATRIX 10". archive.bampfa.berkeley.edu. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  4. Russell, John (June 24, 1983). "ART: Summertime Discoveries at the Galleries". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  5. Smith, Roberta (April 30, 1993). "Art in Review". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  6. "SMMoA Catalog - Projects Page". smmoa.org. October 25, 1990. Retrieved November 8, 2016. Note: Click on "Megan Williams" icon, 3rd row, 5th from left.
  7. Miles, Christopher (September 6, 2003). "Megan Williams at Carl Berg Gallery". artforum.com. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  8. Miles, Christopher (May 2008). "Megan Williams". www.mutualart.com. ArtForum. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  9. Myers, Holly (February 29, 2008). "Pairing quiet and chaotic". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  10. "Artists - 20 Years Ago Today: Supporting Visual Artists in L.A." www.janm.org. Japanese American National Museum. October 4, 2008. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  11. "Figurative Language - UCR ARTSblock". artsblock.ucr.edu. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
  12. "Megan Williams - ArtSlant". www.artslant.com. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  13. Christopher, Miles (May 2008). "Megan Williams". www.mutualart.com. Art Forum. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  14. Emmis Communications (June 1999). "Los Angeles Magazine". Los Angeles. Emmis Communications: 137. ISSN 1522-9149.
  15. "Exhibitions". The Drawing Center. Retrieved November 10, 2016.
  16. Muchnic, Suzanne (January 26, 1992). "COVER STORY : Art in the City of Angels and Demons : A sordid chapter from the past provided the name for 'Helter Skelter'--a show that aims to reflect L.A.'s dark side". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  17. "Megan Williams: Drawn from Memory Artist Project Series - SMMoA". SMMoA. 1990-10-25. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  18. "BAMPFA - Art Exhibitions - Jon Borofsky and Megan Williams / MATRIX 10". archive.bampfa.berkeley.edu. University of California, Berkeley. June 1, 1978. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  19. "Grant Program — Art Matters Foundation". Art Matters Foundation. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  20. "About 20 Years Ago Today: Supporting Visual Artists in L.A. - Japanese American National Museum". www.janm.org. October 4, 2008. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
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