Amalgam : Paintings And Drawings by Kent Williams August 12, 2006

In Kent William’s newest exhibition, Amalgam: Paintings and Drawings, figurative work co-exists alongside simple elements of nature to become powerful embodiments of life’s abundance. With delicate balance, the painting’s narrators (figures with struggles and perplexities; wants and pleasures), become the world they inhabit. A world not always beautiful, but a world alive, never the less.

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"Although clearly a student of Postmodernism, Williams’ narrative, portrait, still life, and landscape paintings have moved beyond Postmodern theory to examine contemporary humanism. In casting aspects of his private life onto the public stage in the form of timeless moral dilemmas, Williams has reinstated the importance of subjects, and taken back the role of originator and skilled narrator of our struggle to find meaning in life.
-Julia Morton
from the upcoming monograph, Kent Williams, Amalgam: Paintings and Drawings

"The main thing about Williams’ production, whatever form it takes, is that one feels a passionate desire to paint at work, and, in addition to that, a passionate desire to enlarge not only his own imaginative experience, but the imaginative experience of anyone who takes the trouble to give his paintings more than a glance. Painting, as I have already hinted, is recovering its consciousness of its own history, perhaps because the time has now come for it to break the shackles of Modernism and go on to something else. It is also embarking on a voyage into the unknown, where its functions will be very different from those assigned to it before the rise, first of the Modern Movement, then of all too numerous post-Modernist impulses, many of which are going to finish up in dead ends. My impression is that Williams sees a tempting highroad, much more clearly than the majority of his contemporaries, and wants us to come along for the trip."
-Edward Lucie-Smith
from the upcoming monograph, Kent Williams, Amalgam: Paintings and Drawings

Exhibition Dates : August 12 - September 9, 2006
Opening Reception : Saturday, August 12, 8 - 11 pm

Official Website: http://www.mkgallery.com