Los Angeles based artist Kent Williams has built up an impressive reputation as a contemporary figurative painter with his “bold realism with combined attributes of abstraction and neo-expressionistic sensibilities. His work is characterized by strong gestural forms combined with areas of arresting detail, rendered with rich dynamic brushwork.”
A graduate of The Pratt Institute in New York, Williams, also works in various other artistic channels including the illustrated word and the graphic novel (most recently, “The Fountain” with filmmaker Darren Aronofsky), printmaking, photography, design, architecture, and film.
A selection of his works on paper, Kent Williams: Drawings & Monotypes, was published in 1991, and Koan: Paintings by Jon Muth & Kent Williams, was published in 2001. His most recent book, Kent Williams: Amalgam
“Williams’ approach to his subjects is often subjective and intense. Whether through multi-figured compositional complexity and suggestive narrative, or with the straight-forward lone human form, there is often autobiographical narrative at play. Favorite models, friends, and the artist himself all play a role in the human story of his paintings.” (bio from KentWilliams.com)
Williams returned as a visiting instructor to The Pratt Institute, and has since gone on to teach at The California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA; East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, and The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Valencia, CA. He currently teaches contemporary figurative painting at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, and is Mentor Faculty at Laguna College of Art and Design, Laguna Beach, CA as part of the MFA program.
Williams has had numerous solo exhibitions over the past ten years, including shows in New York City, San Francisco, CA, Sundance, UT, The Duke Museum of Art, Durham, NC, and in Los Angeles, CA, where he is represented by Merry Karnowsky Gallery. He is the recipient of a number of awards for his work including The Yellow Kid; Lucca, Italy’s prestigious comics award. In 2001, he was invited to be a fellow at the Sundance Filmmakers Lab in Sundance, UT.
To see more of Kent Williams’ work, visit KentWilliams.com or check out his blog KentWilliams.blogspot.com.
