Meet Joshua Williams

Hello there, my name is Joshua Williams! I am a visual artist originally from inner-city Baltimore and now Saint Louis. Currently, I'm doing a 10-week residency with the Harrison Center. My goal is to continue doing residency programs for the next couple of years.

My studio practice work consists of large-scale drawings and paintings. I mix gestural and intuitive lines with splattered marks of saturated paint on unevenly cut surfaces. Buried within these surfaces are different kinds of written languages interspersed with characters (some that are made up, others historical, and others a mix of both). The core reason I make this is to create a cross-cultural visual language that mixes Ancient historical societies (Ancient Near East, Greco-Roman, etc.) with Contemporary culture (Hip-hop, graphic novels, etc). Recently, I have been interested in the way art formalism (focusing on the surface of an object) relates to storytelling or source material. Viewers understand art differently based on their own perspective, and I am interested in creating images that can be read differently depending on the viewer's perception. So, I have been doing pieces that are primarily text and symbols while also doing pieces that think outside the box in terms of presentation (for example, doing a painting on both sides) and making large-scale pieces full of symbolism built into the painting surface. During my residency, I also take part of a day to research, looking for academic sources and books to inform what I am working on.

In my short time, there have been a lot of takeaways. The obvious takeaway is the way that arts serve and enhance the community. But, I have seen the way of using the arts responsibly to create a mutually beneficial system that both artists and the general community win. In doing studio visits with other artists, I have also seen how there is not a straightforward path, and the direction for everyone is different depending on their practice. But also, I’ve learned the importance of taking breaks and pacing yourself as you work. I am grateful for the wonderful staff, interns, community, and artists that I get to be alongside in this time frame. 

Here are some other examples of my work below:

I am grateful that my dad happened to meet Joanna Taft at a conference, which opened up this opportunity at the Harrison Center. The Greatriarch luncheons and Storytelling Drawings Sessions at the Harrison Center are inspiring my residency art. It is an honor to make work that honors their history and stories. Please watch for my large-scale drawings that celebrate the Greatriarchs.