Kent Williams Solos at Merry Karnowsky Gallery in Los Angeles

Written by Xavier Underwood Tuesday, 17 May 2011 22:27

Los Angeles.- Merry Karnowsky Gallery is proud to present Convergence, a solo exhibition by artist Kent Williams from May 21st until June 18th. When fighting is no longer an option, one surrenders, come what may. One must create a connective trust with him or herself alone and plunge hand-in-hand into an unknown so vast, any and everything is possible. It is a trust that is at once both a finale and an introduction. In his exhibition of paintings and drawings, Kent Williams promises that to surrender is not necessarily to give up, and he rewards those who are either hopeless enough, or courageous enough, to submit with a private and sinking comfort inside the eye of the storm. The reassurance he offers is that there is a bridge between the before and after, and it is here; here is now.

In Kent Williams upcoming book Eklektikos, art critic Peter Frank ex-plains, To view a Kent Williams painting is to believe yourself in it  or, more precisely, to believe yourself in it and out of (if near) it at the same time, suspended between levels of reality just as the paintings subjects clearly are. These are not pictures to look at from a safe remove; they are conditions  physical conditions, spatial conditions, mental condi-tions, emotional conditions, human conditions. And these conditions affect all who witness them, whether in them or before them. They have to: they speak to us of us, and must do so about us, not merely at us.

Kent Williams' work has been the subject of a number of 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 the Merry Karnowsky Gallery. Primarily a figurative painter, Williams' work explores, in both bold and subtle ways, and often through a suggestion of narrative and woven symbolism, the thread of life that ties us together as human beings. Embracing our virtues while not shying away from our faults, he shows us portraits of ourselves, intense and penetrating. A graduate of The Pratt Institute in New York, Williams, a consummate draftsman and painter, has realized his work through various other artistic channels as well; that of 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 J Muth & Kent Willaims', was published in 2001. His most recent book, 'Kent Williams: Amalgam: Paintings & Drawings, 1992-2007' is the most comprehensive collection of Williams' work to date. Williams 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. 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.

The Merry Karnowsky Gallery is home to several of the most significant artists working today. Founded in 1997 by Merry Karnowsky, the gallery has had a central focus for over a decade; championing emerging and mid-career artists who push beyond the boundaries of formal definition. The Gallery is devoted to exhibiting contemporary works of art that are challenging, innovative and committed to fostering new directions in American art. With a creative stable that is one of the most significantly sought after both nationally and internationally, the gallery has become one of Los Angeles premier insurrectionary art venues. In March of 2008, Karnowsky opened a second gallery in the Mitte district of Berlin, Germany, committed to bringing fresh, innovative works to the burgeoning Berlin art scene. Articles about the gallery, and/or it's artists have been featured in Juxtapoz, Swindle, Flaunt, Paper, Nylon, The Face, Variety, Giant Robot, Super X Media, Art Week, Art Issues, Flash Art, Modern Painters, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, The LA Weekly, and The Los Angeles Times. MKG Gallery artists have been included in group and solo Museum exhibitions at The Grand Central Art Center, The Baltic Center for Contemporary Art, The Cincinnati Art Center, The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, MOCA Miami, The San Jose Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://mkgallery.com

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