Michael Williams

In the last few years New York-based artist Michael Williams has evolved from making large gestural oil paintings to similarly-scaled paintings printed with a billboard-sized inkjet printer. Despite the drastic shifting of materials there is a warmth and personal quality that persists in the presence of the printed paintings. Williams summons a large catalogue of imagery generated through a dedication to drawing and a mining of his inner psyche. The images that appear again and again in the paintings are often comical, and occasionally make jabs at the present state of mankind, although not in accusatory tone. There is a refusal in Williams' paintings to side with representation or abstraction; rather he neglects the issue and pursues his own path of complex image making. This volume gives an overview of these recent shifts in Williams' work. * * The publication includes essays by British fiction author and journalist George Pendle, and curator and writer Dan Nadel. * * Published on the occasion of Michael Williams' solo exhibition at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, with the support of Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich; Michael Werner Gallery, London/New York; and CANADA, New York.