Convergence: The Art of Kent Williams
This article first appeared in Hi-Fructose Issue 21., which is sold out.
I dreamed that I possessed ubiquity, twenty resemblances of myself appearing in as many different places, in the same room and each being so thoroughly possessed by my own mind that I could not ascertain which of them was myself.” —Robert Macnish, “The Philosophy of Sleep,” 1834
Natalia sits hunkered in a barren studio, hands writhing and entangled, hair a platinum blond. Her eyes an uncomfortable combination of seduction and piercing intensity. Around her are scattered the vestiges of any atelier, paint cans and orange extension cords, the window over her left shoulder so muddied from either soot or paint that it seems just as difficult looking out as looking in. The work of Kent Williams is akin to this window: one is never sure whether they are looking into the lives of him and his subjects, or outward to some hazy half-remembered, half-forgotten dream.
Natalia appears throughout Williams’ recent works with such frequency that the artist has referred to her as “chameleon like.” Ever changing in style and shape, she flutters across his linen, both literally as that is the canvas upon which he paints, and figuratively as in “Studio Arrangement.” In this work, Natalia remains similarly posed as she is in “Blonde Natalia, Again” and “Blonde Natalia, Paint Can, and Orange Electric Cord.” Many of the same elements from her previous portraits remain constant, the paint cans, the dirty windows, the orange extension cord. Her gaze is unwavering, focused on someone or something in the distance, seemingly unresponsive to the eschewed, nude male behind her. His pelvis thrusts outward, his eyes closed in an expression of either heavenly ecstasy or insurmountable pain.
Much as the indecipherable expression on the males face, Kent Williams’ body of work presents in itself a multitude of dualities. The stern and sexual Natalia is counterbalanced by heartwarming portraits of other subjects, most notably Sena, daughter of painter Mari Inukai and like a daughter to Kent as well. “New Spring” prominently features Sena, grappling with a friend in a sea of pastels and patterns. A fan whirs away, extending from it an orange cord defying space, running behind a tree, indoors and up a wall.
My work is a continuum. What makes a “body” of work is simply that it is grouped together and defined by an exhibition date.”
At the time of this writing, Sena is packing up and moving to college. “Not only is it a major change in her life, but for her mom as well. A change the mom (Mari) is having a hard time with already,” Kent explains. “The bottom figure is her good friend, Fumi, whom she will be leaving and whose figure represents all that Sena will have to let go of in order to move on with her new life. A positive image—and a positive and natural stage in life, but like most change, even when good, it comes with some loss.”
Like many of the best painters and artists past or present, Williams’ work struggles within the restrictive confines of a .jpeg. The layers of texture and size of scale simply don’t translate as they should and as such I found myself traveling to Los Angeles to take in his latest exhibit, Convergence, at Merry Karnowski Gallery. A continuation of an earlier showing, Eklektikos, Williams’ latest is hard to categorize as an individual body of work. Kent explained: “My work is a continuum. What makes a ‘body’ of work is simply that it is grouped together and defined by an exhibition date. For the most part, I don’t start a show anew or shift my direction as if adopting a new approach, but the work does evolve.”
Someone who understands this evolution best is gallerist Merry Karnowski. The two first met at the San Diego ComicCon, around 1993, back when it “was a much more artist focused convention,” Merry says. “I saw a book of Kent’s work there for the first time. I was with a friend, who came up to me really excited and said, ‘I just met this great painter. He’s right around the corner, I want you to meet him.’ But, I was really engrossed in Kent’s book, so I said, ‘Hold up, I want you to see these amazing paintings in this book.’ So, we started to look through the book together, and my friend said, ‘Oh my God… that’s him. It’s the same guy!’”
From that pleasantly fateful and serendipitous meeting, Karnowski has worked closely with Williams since. From producing his Selected Works catalogue in London in 1995 to debuting him in the fall of 1997, Karnowsky has witnessed his growth and evolution from a standpoint unparalleled. When asked about his choice of subjects, Merry states:
“For Kent, the references may be more direct, and perhaps, more intimate, but that’s what makes it so compelling. It’s almost as though we are given a glimpse into these very private moments between people— moments of tension, tenderness, and deliberation—which can be unsettling… It’s like we’re not supposed to be there, but can’t look away.”
Williams’ “1962” serves as an ideal example of Karnowski’s diagnosis. The work measures just a bit over five feet in height, and almost as long in width. It is comprised of oil on linen and features two sitting figures.
The figure in the background is of a woman, she appears to either be putting her clothing back on, or taking it off, while at the same time looking over her shoulder, partly at the viewer and partly at the main figure in the center.
It’s difficult to know if this is a self-portrait of Kent as the majority of the male figure’s face is blocked; however, the intense look from the one visible eye is directed at the viewer, or possibly at Kent himself.
Around the two is a hallucinatory world wherein she is indoors and he out. A stream of paint runs by his foot while a scorpion scampers across her bedsheets. Traditional Japanese ukiyo-e inspired imagery wavers on the outer extremities like faint memories reappearing in the subconscious. Subtle hints of violence and pain found in the deadly arthropod and varicose rivers running down his arms are fully realized by the lunging tiger engulfing the male figure’s face.
“The tiger is used as a visceral representation of the human need for vitality in life, which is not always gotten freely or without scars,” Kent explains, duly noting that 1962 was also the Year of the Tiger.
Whether the tiger is representative of the relationship between the two figures or a bout on introspection is impossible to ascertain.
In fact, the role of Williams’ subjects in his work-and the open interpretations of them-are often so disparate that trying to even attempt to understand them can quite frankly be a futile undertaking.
In the introduction to Williams’ Drawings and Monotypes, published in 1991, author John Rieber described his process: “I came to one of my favorite drawings, ‘Melissa’ What could my questions have to do with her? Explain her? Analyze her? Define her? Define her significance?
Ileft her as she was, and went outside to admire the magnolia tree, soon to be planted.”
Luckily, enough of Kent’s work is introspective to the degree that one can at least get a glimpse into his world every now and again.
However, the artist does warn that he’s not an open book. After all, “that would run counter to my like of ambiguity and suggestion, I think. That being said, most of my work-some more or less than others-are autobiographical in nature. This does not mean, however, that my story is written out like a book. Issues, relationships and people that play parts in my life at any given time, all figure into the make-up of the work. I do take the work, at times, to some personally deep places, and boldly so. I’ll present the pain, but the cause I’ll leave interpretable.”
The final interpretation I request is regarding “Convergence: Yumiko.” The painting, even larger than “1962,” depicts a Japanese woman of indiscernible age, laying on a brightly embroidered quilt. Her arms are wrapped around herself though it’s hard to say if they’re doing so to be comforting or to simply be comfortable. Cherry blossom petals melt into shades of pink above her, slowly becoming abstracted in patterned cloth and wayward limbs. An orange extension cord continues upon the journey it began in Sena’s painting, keeping wide breadth of the alligator jaw bone on the bed.
I do take the work, at times, to some personally deep places, and boldly so. I’ll present the pain, but the cause I’ll leave interpretable.
The skeletal remains “can be seen simply as still-life, or it can be reflective of Yumi, her profession and her ability to make statements that are pithy, sharp, and inveterate,” Kent explains, noting that “the model is a PhD and Professor of Philosophy in Boston. She likes
to tell me of Zhuangzi, and how he uses paradoxical statements to illustrate his views about the truth and human nature. Which is what paintings of people can do, right?-show us a little truth about human nature.”
It’s interesting that through Kent via Yumiko the discussion turns to Zhuangzi. The most recognizable writing of the fourth century BCE philosopher is that of the Butterfly Dream. “Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn’t know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.”
Upon first glance, Williams’ subjects are all part of the same narratives, yet upon closer inspection perhaps that’s not the case at all. In “Studio Arrangement,” Natalia seems more to be floating above the male behind her than sitting upon. Sena has already begun her new life without Fumi in “New Spring” and the figures in
“1962” seem completely unaware of the existence of the other. They are all separated, fractalized, drifting through time and space and imagination. Perhaps they lie on the same linen, but they are dreaming, skewed between outdoors and in, centuries apart on a linear scale. Or perhaps, ultimately, they are to Kent what ubiquity is to a never ending long orange cord, nothing more than an extension.*
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