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Sue Williams

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Sue Williams
Artist's Name: Sue Williams
Preferred medium: painting
birth year: 1954
Nationality: US
City: New York

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Sue Williams - Profile

In the late 1980's, Sue Williams's painting, which was still heavily marked by a narrative approach, became known to a wider audience for the fist time. In diary-like scenes of domestic violence and sexual obscenities reminiscent of commonly trivial picture stories such as comics and cartoons, the artist expressed her personal anger at the persistent social acceptance of sexism. In contrast to the consensus on the use of technical media such as photography and video as it was then predominant in the feminist artists' cri-tique, Williams insisted on discussing her concern for the female cause within the tradi-tionally patriarchal domain that is painting. As her artistic work evolved, Sue Williams began weaving her initial narrative fragments of human tragedies and body parts into a calligraphesque tissue of unconscious material made of lines and body forms, spots and openings. Williams's large-format paintings of that time illustrate in particular how her expressive ductus and the paint itself dissolve forms against an empty background, giving birth to a new kind of corporeality consisting of moving lines of varying width. During the last couple of years, with her works reaching a higher level of abstraction, Williams has reduced her visual vocabulary to a few monochrome, wide and powerfully gesticulatory brushstrokes. These somewhat elegant arabesques leave room for voids that offer a glimpse of the blank background, thus creating a new sense of lightness and lucidity. Williams's latest works, on the other hand, reveal a renewed tendency towards more density characterized by closed lines and amorphous forms, which seem to forge a link between the artist's two preferred media, painting and drawing. Her ductus, whose precision is sometimes emphasized by contouring lines, once again displays figurative shapes and narrative elements that strive to stimulate the viewer's associative imagina-tion. At the same time, the pictorial flow of constellations colliding, intertwining and growing apart lets the entire structure float weightlessly above the still monochrome background. These paintings, too, rely on an energetic force, which, however, does not so much cause inner tensions as - in unison with a superior ensemble - provide a com-mon creative ground that keeps the paintings together. (Galerie Eva Presenhuber)

important exhibitions from Sue Williams

Exhibition Location City Country Date
Comic Abstraction: Image Breaking, Image Making MoMA - Museum of Modern Art New York US 04.03.2007
HOW SOON NOW Rubell Family Collection Miami US 01.12.2010
FIGURING COLOR ICA Boston Boston US 16.02.2012
SUE WILLIAMS Galerie Eva Presenhuber Zürich CH 23.07.2010
MOCA's First Thirty Years The Museum of Modern Art - Grand Avenue - MOCA Los Angeles US 15.11.2009
Hareng Saur Ensor and Contemporary Art Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK) Gent BE 31.10.2010
Collecting Biennials Whitney Museum of American Art New York US 16.01.2010
Sue Williams Regen Projects Los Angeles US 02.12.2006
Sue Williams Galerie Eva Presenhuber Zürich CH 11.06.2006
Sue Williams Bernier / Eliades Gallery Athen GR 04.11.2004

Galleries representing
Sue Williams:

303 Gallery
Bernier / Eliades Gallery
David Zwirner 525 West 19th Street
Galerie Eva Presenhuber
Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot
Kukje Gallery
Sadie Coles HQ

Collections representing
Sue Williams

ARCO Foundation Collection
Ellipse Foundation
EVN Sammlung
Exit Art, New York
Neue Galerie Graz - Universalmuseum Joanneum
Sammlung Goetz
Seattle Art Museum
The Berardo Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
The Broad Art Foundation