Susan Williams is known for her imagined landscapes—dreamy, interior descendants of romantic landscapes in a style recognizably her own. Her paintings represent thoughts and memories that brush up against distractions: an island, a tree, a rock, painted on a canvas of her own private stories, narratives, and daydreams. “The overall impression,” wrote one admirer, “is that of a tone poem—as if Whistler ran into Cormac McCarthy.”
About her upcoming exhibition, “Dissolve into Stillness” (opening August 2, 2024) Williams writes:
“The apartment where I grew up in New York City had a tiny view of the East River. I knew it was dangerous, but I loved watching the light change on the surface. When I started painting, I painted water. I never stopped.
For me, water is an invitation to dive in, explore, revel in weightlessness. But there is also an undercurrent of tension – between the joy of powering across the surface and the uneasiness about the barely visible world below.
When I paint a swimmer, I start with a wash of color on a blank surface. Then I plunge in – experimenting, reconsidering, and recasting until I get some clarity about the work in progress. As ideas emerge, I angle into their slipstream and carry them as far as I can. The rest of the task is subversive. I turn the motion I’ve created into its opposite, a point where the churn of swimmer and water, painter and paint, dissolve into stillness. But there is no release of tension, no repose. The stillness magnifies the danger at the heart of these paintings – visible in the distance between swimmer and the surface.”
As her work evolves—quietly, evanescently—Williams stays true to herself and her vision, something that is not always easy to accomplish. It is far easier to say, “I must change,” or “I must try something completely new.” It is harder, in many ways, to stay the course.
Williams has had significant exhibitions in New York and Maine; juried and group shows; success with numerous collections, including an acquisition of a group of paintings by McKinsey & Co and Goldman Sachs & Co; and solo exhibitions at the Gerald Peters Gallery in New York City. She is represented by the Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, Maine and Downing-Yudain in Stamford, Connecticut and has worked with various art consultants, including Kate Bellin, Bea Medinger, Lily Downing, and Heather Hearst. Her work has also appeared in numerous blogs and publications. A New York City native, Williams has a B.A. in Art History and Visual Art from Bowdoin College (cum laude). She is the mother of two grown children, Margaret and George, and divides her time between Camden, Maine and Mill Valley, California with her husband, Rufus.
Susan Williams exhibition, EARTH TONES: The Art of Interference, ran from August 18th to September 15th, 2021Williams_2021_ecatalog
