How might Williams’ more distinctive creative eras be expanded on?
Williams’ works features Latin American imagery and iconography, paintings of birds, cosmic and galactic references and immense abstract canvasses; all of which represent elements of a life spent both incessantly curious and intensely disciplined.
Williams possessed an expansive fascination with the natural world and wider cosmos – evolution, life form, environment, conservation, science and technology - and he kept current on all developments. He would be the first to speak of any natural event or stellar discovery highlighted in the news, as much as any scientific advancement or point of cultural note. His interest in natural history saw him a keen amateur ornithologist, with an intimate connection to birds and their power of flight, particularly raptors. The fact that he felt so closely connected to the birds he drew and painted throughout his life results in their character and individuality coming across often more immediately than their anatomical correctness, an effect Williams was keen to convey.
And how might his artistic practice be considered?
Ideas or smaller studies for many of Williams’ paintings frequently commenced in one place, to be consolidated in another, and completed elsewhere again. This meant he could start a piece in his London studio, take it off the stretcher, roll the canvas up and take it to his studio in Jamaica or Florida. He would then complete most of the work there, spool it again, return with it to London and then re-stretch it for completion. In this way he was able to take maximum advantage of the different merits of light and environment as they impacted his resulting works.
He appeared comfortable transitioning between medium and style:
Williams maintained a consistent commitment for life drawing and figuration, keeping on-going sketch books in a range of media - from pencil, charcoal and watercolour, to permanent and coloured marker. It is likely that this concentration on the form was what lent him such fluidity in being able to skip between, and merge, abstraction and figuration in his larger canvas works.
What inspired his more notable Cosmos, Olmec-Maya and Shostakovich series?
Williams’ work repeatedly connects with concerns of popular conscience, as well as more pointed and abrasively challenging issues of change, such as revolution, uprising and cataclysm.
The series Cosmos arose from a passion for astronomy and science fiction. Wherever he was in the world, Williams made time to spend clear nights observing the stars through a telescope. The vastness of the uncharted universe and the possibility of the existence of lifeforms other than homo sapiens fascinated him, as well as connecting to his interest in the relatively unexplained disappearance of earthly civilizations deemed “advanced”, such as the Maya.
The Olmec-Maya & Now series were a largescale culmination of feeling a close affinity to the first nations of Meso and South America and the Caribbean – notably the Maya, Olmec, Inca, Toltec, Carib and Arawak. Williams often put names towards works and series of works, such as Maya Series – Cenote IV, featured in Get Up, Stand Up Now.
The Shostakovich series arose in homage to (among his enjoyment of other classical and contemporary music) Williams’ high admiration of the music of composer Dimitri Shostakovich – particularly his fifteen symphonies and fifteen quartets – which Williams sought to represent by means of synaesthesia; sound in paint on canvas.
Get Up, Stand Up Now focusses on two of Williams artworks:
Maya Series – Cenote IV, 1968, [pictured above] features as promotional material for the exhibition.
This work is one of a series of several gouaches, painted in quick succession on coarse brown paper. These works maintain a similar style and melody, and could be considered a precursory ‘study’ series to the five vast mural panels Williams was commissioned to paint for – then - Timehri Airport in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1971.
The painting featured in the exhibition is Carib Ritual IV, 1973. Painted in the 1970s, this piece could be considered more akin to Williams’ 1980s works. This striking oil on canvas is a riot of layered abstraction, celebrating Williams’ favoured cerulean blue and lava-like scarlet pigments. The uplifting yellow and grounding burnt amber horizon, with a foreground detailed with bone-coloured fragments, akin to petroglyphic markings.
Get Up, Stand Up Now is open at Somerset House until 12 September 2019.
With special thanks to The Estate of Aubrey Williams and Somerset House.
Browse Aubrey Williams’ full Artimage collection here, or preview some highlighted artworks below:
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Images: Maya Series Cenote IV © Aubrey Williams Estate. Courtesy of Somerset House; Olmec Maya & Now, Now & Coming Time, 1985, Tate Britain collection © Estate of Aubrey Williams. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2019; Olmec Maya & Now, Time & the Elements, 1985, Aubrey Williams Estate collection © Estate of Aubrey Williams. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2019; Roseate Spoonbill, 1977, private collection © Estate of Aubrey Williams. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2019; Shostakovich 7th Symphony opus 60, 1981, Arts Council Collection. © Estate of Aubrey Williams. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2019; Portrait of Aubrey Williams © Val Wilmer. Courtesy of October Gallery.