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Swim
A solo exhibition of oil paintings by CHARLES WILLIAMS
Friday, September 25th – October 13th, 2015
OPENING RECEPTION
Friday, September 25th 6pm-8pm
The artist will be in attendance.
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Lost and Found 4, 72″x96″, oil on canvas
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EXHIBITION LOCATION
Morton Fine Art (MFA)
1781 Florida Ave NW (at 18th & U Sts)
Washington, DC 20009
HOURS
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm
Sunday 12pm-5pm
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Swim, 30″x30″, oil on panel
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About Swim
In Swim, his debut solo exhibition at Morton Fine Art, North Carolina based painter, CHARLES WILLIAMS explores deeply personal themes of aquaphobia and stereotypes of swimming and African Americans in the South. Swim expands on his solo Swim : An Artist’s Journeyrecently on view at The Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chaplin Art Museum.
Charles Williams’ oceanscapes capture the dangerous beauty of the sea while simultaneously addressing his most personal and private fears stemming from nearly drowning at age 11. To create seascape nocturnes for Swim, Williams forced himself to wade in the water, reliving the profound fear of his youth, to snap photos of waves with trembling hands and quickened heartbeat. Once out of the ocean and back in his studio, he worked from these source images, which are often shaky and imperfect, to recreate them on canvas.
As a child Williams was taught that he could do anything he put his mind to, but after his close call with a watery death, he started to doubt this mantra and began to internalize the stereotypes he heard from his peers claiming that black people could not swim. Growing up in South Carolina and hearing limiting and oppressive phrases like this led Williams to believe that there was something inherently wrong with him (and those of his complexion) that prevented him from swimming. In Swim, Williams also explores self portraits, created freehand and intuitively in contrast to his oceanscapes (which are drafted with measuring tools like grids and rulers) with the intent of capturing his state of being rather than his physical attributes.
“How we handle traumatic experiences both shapes and molds our identities. As an artist, I am deeply inspired to humbly respond to those experiences by orchestrating new viewpoints of the fears associated with them – in this case, the fear of water. It is my hope that the psychological and physical elements found in my work, which aim to acknowledge fear as a stepping-off point for overcoming it, elicit hope and compassion in its viewers. These paintings serve as a personal testimony of my decision to begin a journey toward freedom.”
About CHARLES WILLIAMS
Charles Williams is a contemporary realist painter from Georgetown, South Carolina and a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia. He is currently earning his MFA from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
Recent achievements and awards include a Hudson River Landscape Fellowship, featured work in the Artists Magazines 28th Annual Art Competition, honorable mention from Southwest Art Magazines 21 Emerging Under 31 competition, 2012 Winner of the Fine Art Category from Creative Quarterly, 2013 selected artist for 28th Positive Negative juried art exhibition at East Tennessee State University, juror/curated by Michael Ray Charles from PBS Ar21. Williams’ works has been shown in American Art Collector, Empty Magazine, Charleston Magazine, Grand Strand, Studio Visit, Bluecanvas and other national publications. He was recently interviewed and broadcast on ETV/ NPR station, entitled: Nature through the Eyes of an Artist. His contemporary landscapes have been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in galleries in Washington, DC, New York, Vermont, California, Georgia, South Carolina and several other southeastern states.
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CHARLES WILLIAMS painting Swim in his North Carolina studio
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About Morton Fine Art
Founded as an innovative solution to the changing contemporary art market, Morton Fine Art (MFA) is a fine art gallery and curatorial group that collaborates with art collectors and visual artists to inspire fresh ways of acquiring contemporary art. Firmly committed to the belief that anyone can become an art collector, MFA’s mission is to provide accessibility to museum-quality contemporary art through a combination of innovative exhibitions and a new generation of art services.
For further information and images, please contact Amy Morton:
Exhibition catalogs available upon request.
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Morton Fine Art: curator's notes 