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Berlin • b. 1978
Michael Williams (b. 1978, Doylestown, Pennsylvania) negotiates the long history of painting by consistently questioning—and often undoing—its major components. Challenging himself with an ever-evolving set of formal problems, he produces images that reflect modern complexity and contradiction. Recent works have been made using a variety of different materials and tools, including oil paint, collage, and airbrushes; some have been composed on a computer using Photoshop and a digital drawing pad before being inkjet-printed onto canvas. In the execution of his images Williams twists together a balance of offhanded gesture and careful compositional rigor, making decisions that keep his paintings willfully misoriented. As art historian Richard Shiff notes, “[Williams’s] art is infectious in causing others to ponder the importance—or not—of anything. It’s a start-all-over-again art for a start-all-over-again life.”
