PHILEMONA WILLIAMSON

Name: Philemona Williamson
Birthplace: New York City, USA
Home: Montclair, NJ, USA
Discipline: Painting

Here I Hold Becoming, 2020, oil on canvas, picture by A. Mole, courtesy of Semiose, Paris

What are the main topics you deal with in your practice?

My adolescent figures are navigating a world of ambiguity, contradiction, uncertainty, and hope. They inhabit invented environments merging past, present, and future. I find the period between childhood and adulthood tumultuous. My paintings explore this time. Paintings begin with a colour ground: colour sets the mood, energy, and psychological environment for the narrative. Gestural drawings of adolescent figures are next, their movements revealing their internal anxiety. In the painting Verbena Street, I was thinking of all the ways in which embraces happen — intentionally, by surprise, stolen, or just playful and innocent. The viewer must engage, remember, and then decide, interpreting the narrative. I want the painting to begin a conversation with the viewer, starting with colour that seduces and leads you to the content. What is the story? What are they doing? Questions are the most invigorating and rewarding way to enter a painting,

How do you define your artistic research in three words?

Vulnerability. Risk. Perseverance.

What images and spaces do you want to create through your work?

I am inspired by what I imagine to be my adolescent figures’ intense reaction to the politics and social issues of our time. I find the awkwardness, innocence, and sensuality that exists in that age group endlessly exciting to explore in painting. I want the paintings to have the ability to take the viewer to a place they remember, familiar yet mysterious. Becoming an adult has too often meant forgoing the childlike curiosity and enthusiasm for the magic in life. I want to bring that magic back, to have figures that don’t fit into a neat racial or gender category. Figures that subvert the obvious and challenge the viewer to look beyond the surface. I paint to create that magical space where all is possible again.

Where and how do you find poetry?

Poetry is all around me, whether it’s people watching teenagers walking arm in arm, or groups of kids laughing with abandon. Hugs on the street. Walking through food markets in other countries, seeing the colours and textures, smelling the mix of flavours. Hearing bits and pieces of conversations. I also like to read folktales which rely on the most absurd reasons to explain things. I love that. It is not the logical answer, it is the mystical one.

In your view, what does being an artist mean in today’s world?

Being an artist in today’s world is the same as being an artist in yesterday’s world. I went to Haiti over 25 years ago. I was there to do workshops with children and exchange art done by NYC kids with the Haitian kids’ work for an exhibit. I also visited artists’ studios while I was there. I learned from that visit that being a creative person is not defined by the world, it is defined by the person creating. The passion and com- mitment of those artists had nothing to do with gallery representation, money, awards, or elite institutions. They painted because they had to, they had something to say, so they painted. I have been painting since I was an adolescent and I have always seen it as the thing I love to do. It is important to hold on to the reasons why one is an artist and let that passion support you through the difficult times this world brings.