Peter Williams: Detroit

Over four decades, Peter Williams (1952 - 2021) created artworks that explore contemporary culture, racism, mass incarceration, environmentalism, and voyeurism through an approachable visual style. His paintings encourage the viewer to look deeply at the canvas for clues and insight about the Black experience. Defying categorization, his painting style incorporates varying levels of abstraction, figuration, narrative, and iconographic elements. He draws inspiration from posters, comics, and the vibrant colors of city life.

 

“Most people don’t have any kind of dialogue with the work of 500 years ago or even 100 years ago. I’m trying to talk in the language that’s available to most people. We live in a comic universe right now. I’m trying to be subversive by saying underneath all this humor is something we’d better start paying attention to. And I’m using the signs and symbols and signifiers that I learned from the Western tradition of oil painting,” noted Williams in an interview with the Artists’ Legacy Foundation in 2020.

 

Bent Word focuses on Williams’ paintings made in the last few years of his life. The series include Afro-Futurist narratives about a superhero named “The N Word,” as well as a group of African American colonists who leave Earth due to impending environmental catastrophe. In both, Williams uses dazzling patterns and imagery to guide the viewer on a journey rife with art historical and pop culture references, satire, and creativity.

 

At the time of his death, Peter Williams lived in Wilmington, DE, and had recently retired from his position as Senior Professor in the Fine Arts Department at the University of Delaware. He was an associate professor at Wayne State University in Detroit for 17 years prior to his professorship at the University of Delaware. Williams earned an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

 

Peter Williams' paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Whitney  Museum of American Art, NY; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE; Howard University, Washington, DC; and Davis Museum at Wellesley College, MA. His works are also in the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH; Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint, MI; McEvoy Collection, San Francisco, CA; Jorge M. Pérez Collection at Espacio 23, Miami, FL; and the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection at The Bunker, Palm Beach, FL among others.