Randy Williams: Installations and Ruminations
January 12 – March 4, 2007

Williams’ work both powerfully and sensitively addresses a multitude of socio-political issues within the framework of the African-American Diaspora.  His installations and three-dimensional book constructions juxtapose personal items with found materials, expanding the biographical to an all-consuming search for self-awareness.

Williams says, “The content of my art explores the tangible events of my past as well as the current events that I experience presently. In a very simple manner my artwork acts as a form of re-constructive surgery. Often I explore elements of my past that were harmful to me as an African-American. When I was young I was restrained and incapable of correcting injustices inflicted upon me. Now that I am stronger and have the capacity to view the world differently, I often use my artwork to comment on a personal history.”  Wrestling with past and present, Williams’ poetically reveals that art is both his salvation and his demon.

Randy Williams is a professor of art in the Studio Art Department at Manhattanville College, director of the New York State Summer School of the Arts, and consultant and instructor for educational programs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  Williams has also received numerous awards and fellowships of distinction, which include the Kellogg Fellowship from The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and The American Academy in Rome.  His work has been exhibited widely, in venues such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Jamaica Arts Center, the Franklin Furnace and PS1 in New York.