Frozen (2020) The Disney juggernaut has long held a contested place within Western consumer culture, serving on the one hand as a promulgator of mainstream liberal ideologies and on the other as a force that both appropriates and flattens the cultural artefacts it consumes. As such, both in its tropes and also in its cultural…
And the Wolf (2019, watercolour on paper)
This brooding work steps away from her recent Abstract Expressionist themes to explore her feminist influences. Williams situates herself here not just in an artistic tradition but explicitly within a female one, in the work’s clear allusion both to the spare yet energetic, fraying lines and the passionate social engagement of Nancy Spero, but also…
Visiting artist: Shingle Street (2019, mixed media)
This charming landscape by visiting artist Dorothy Locke dialogues with Williams’ Lamdscapes series and is inspired by the famous ‘Shingle Street’ stretch of houses along a stony Suffolk beach. Rich with the warm colours of a summer holiday and redolent with the warm glow of childhood nostalgia, the work both draws us back into our…
I Contain Multitudes (2019, watercolour on paper)
This striking watercolour sees the artist engaging with contemporary ‘splatter’ painters such as Matthew Munsey, as well as a bold monochromatic tone in deepest Prussian blue. The dramatic effect created by folding the two ‘splattered’ halves of the work together, mirroring the painted areas over one another, creates a dramatic effect reminiscent of insect shapes,…
Archetypes 5: It’s A Hard Rain Gonna Fall (2019, tempura on canvas)
This brooding addition to the Archetypes series departs from the light-filled watercolour technique of earlier painting, employing layers of intensely coloured tempura on canvas to convey an apocalyptic atmosphere that draws from end of the world scenarios as diverse as Bob Dylan’s metaphor-strewn landscapes and today’s Extinction Rebellion youth climate change protests as well as…
London III: Regent’s Park
This gritty addition to the London diptych blends collage with pen-and-ink to capture the multiple layers of energy, grandeur, glamour and squalor overlaying this iconic London park. The pale form of an elephant looms in the background, as if waiting patiently for – for what? Liberation from a zoo enclosure? Clean air to breathe? Meanwhile,…
Parliament of Fowles 4: Chanticleer (2018, crayon, paper)
The final work in this series exploring avian motifs takes its title from Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, in which the rooster Chauntecleer nearly meets his doom after a fox uses flattery to overcome his natural wariness, only to be flattered himself by the rooster into permitting Chauntecleer to escape. The tale warns the reader…
Red Flag (2018, mixed media)
This challenging piece explores some of the more complex themes that underlie the sparkle and celebration overtly acknowledged around the Christmas season. The title refers to the Communist anthem ‘The Red Flag’, which is sung to the same tune as a traditional German song ‘O Tannenbaum’, originally a song about steadfastness but adopted as a…
Swiss Garden 1-5 (2018, mixed media on paper)
Swiss Garden 1 Named for a garden created in the Victorian era by the 3rd Baron Ongley at Old Warden in Bedfordshire, this lapidary series of mixed media miniatures evokes the deep green foliage, bright splashed of blossom and carefully-crafted little vistas typical of the eponymous garden. Swiss Garden 2 Deep greens, cobalt blues and…
Sketches (Street Life) (2018, wax and pen on paper)
Dog Walkers in the Rain, Brockwell Park, SE24 Carnival, Notting Hill, W11 Leadenhall St, EC3 Pigeons by the Sainsbury Wing, WC2N Flooding outside Hammersmith Tube, W6 These five sketches return to the spare, dynamic style seen in the ‘Parliament of Fowles’ series, ranging broadly across London’s streets in vignettes that seem to veer to one…
Like It Was Done By A Toddler 
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