Forrest Williams: Crossways

Description

In his much anticipated fourth solo exhibition at Marx & Zavattero, New York painter Forrest Williams presents his latest paintings of contemplative male figures on panel and paper. On view October 30 – December 18, 2010, Crossways debuts a new series in which intense dramatic lighting, dense pattern, and oblique angles emphasize an unstable, somewhat disorienting space that his subjects inhabit both physically and spatially. Williams’ paintings have always seamlessly fused his interest in figuration and abstraction, but in this new body of work Williams utilizes abstract patterns as a tool in which his subjects hang in a somewhat helter-skelter balance.

The paintings are simultaneously bright and emotional, with luscious textures that emphasize the months that Williams spends with his models, allowing both pattern and person to emerge out of thickly applied oil paint. In Field (Evening) a single male figure lies below a tree; his outstretched arm mimics the branches, lifeless and longing. Here, arrows function as both object and pattern, surrounding and pointing at the figure, suggesting a multiplicity of emotions as they team across the painterly surface. Pattern is always a key element in Williams’ work. He adapts it with a specific personal symbolism in mind – arrows, trees, dragonflies, antique tiles, and fabrics inhabit the painting’s surface, often in stark contrast with bold hues of blue, red, and orange – creating compositions that in some cases overwhelm the figure and allude to tangible emotional states.

For Williams, this series of works is “about taking the strict vertical/horizontal structure of the previous work and turning it on the diagonal.” These diagonals combine with the pattern to create a “scaffolding” for the figures that are at once connected, subverted, and subjugated by these environments. In Twilight, two male figures sit closely together at a table covered with a delicate floral motif. One is upright, leaning and looking out onto the viewer, while the other lies on top of the table – quiet and motionless – depicting a moment of stillness that is both stunningly quixotic and listless. Williams’ work has an almost indescribable power to unearth the tenuous moments where spoken and unspoken narratives are quietly lurking.

Williams has exhibited in many well-received exhibitions, including Color Key, the Painting Center, New York; Seldom Seen-Never and rarely seen work from the Foundation’s permanent collection, The, Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, New York; Re-presenting Representation 6, The Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY; Figuratively Speaking, Lyons Wier Gallery, New York; Pilgrims, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR; and Human Figure Humaine, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, Québec. His work has been reproduced in Harper’s Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Bay Area Reporter, American Art Collector, and Genre, and reviewed in ArtUS, Art & Antiques, Portland Mercury, Artweek, and on SFGate.com. His work is in the permanent collection of The Lesbian & Gay Community Center and The Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation as well as several well-known private collections. Williams received his MFA from The New York Academy of Art.

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