When I was growing up I spent A LOT of time fishing with my Dad. He
was never blessed with a son and I was the first born (for eight years
until my twin sisters came along), so the honor fell to me to learn
how to bait a hook with a squirmy worm or night-crawler. Sometimes when
I am gazing into one of Mike Williams’ “fish paintings”,
I think of my Dad and know that had he ever known Mike Williams, they
would have become fast friends. Dad also loved nature, and like Mike,
spent a lot of time out there on the lakes, rivers, and oceans fishing,
trolling, and enjoying the outdoors. Dad was a lawyer though, not an
artist, so he couldn’t translate all his passion for the outdoors
and for the sport of fishing onto a canvas. I don’t know if he
ever gazed into the water and thought about how much this life above
water is a lot like life below the water…but Mike Williams has.
For Williams, like other accomplished painters, titles are not that
important. It’s the paint and the painting itself that really
matter. That being said, there are some titles that bring a body of
work together, uniting them as a “series”. For instance,
with regard to this current exhibition Williams says “the pieces
titled ‘On the Verge IV and V’ share a compositional feature
that first appeared in three paintings done in the spring of 2008 during
the last weeks of my mother’s life.” Others that have emerged
are the “In the Round” series, the “Filter”
series, and more recently, the “Congo”, and “Streaming”
series. As he says, “Ambiguity has long been one of my favorite
qualities in a painting. If purpose is not clearly defined, an object
could be dismissed as confusing and puzzling, however, that which has
multiple purposes, meanings, or dimensions is far more intriguing.”
This Summer Show of Mike Williams’ recent work is both intriguing
and amazing. It offers some of the artist’s strongest work yet.
Enjoy!
Cheryl Newby
