CHIARA WILLIAMS
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2019: CURRENT / WORK IN PROGRESS
I'm currently using Instagram as a scrapbook to document my daily practice and musings. This is an excerpt of my instagram feed. Scroll down for other recent bodies of work.
"I am not a vessel"
The two paintings on aluminium above - Reluctant Satyr #1 and #2 - were originally created for POW Thanet 2019. They address questions of bodily consent and autonomy, and specifically the very dangerous notion of the female body as a passive vessel, as predicated by religion and mediated through depictions of the body throughout the history of art.
These contexts have made me once again revisit my earlier works about the Birth of Venus. The overt set of signifiers that repeat in my work all seem to stem from this work. A single naked ovum sits precariously on a bed of blue pigment, the colour of the Virgin Mary's mantle, within a vanity mirror compact that mimics the clam shell; a clutch of 15 ova are poised in a triangle on a blue carpet about to be smashed apart by a snooker cue, the mirror is clouded with egg whites, and sits in a puddle of the same.
About fucking...about painting...about fucking painting
The two paintings on aluminium above - Reluctant Satyr #1 and #2 - were originally created for POW Thanet 2019. They address questions of bodily consent and autonomy, and specifically the very dangerous notion of the female body as a passive vessel, as predicated by religion and mediated through depictions of the body throughout the history of art.
These contexts have made me once again revisit my earlier works about the Birth of Venus. The overt set of signifiers that repeat in my work all seem to stem from this work. A single naked ovum sits precariously on a bed of blue pigment, the colour of the Virgin Mary's mantle, within a vanity mirror compact that mimics the clam shell; a clutch of 15 ova are poised in a triangle on a blue carpet about to be smashed apart by a snooker cue, the mirror is clouded with egg whites, and sits in a puddle of the same.
About fucking...about painting...about fucking painting
2018: recent BODIES OF work
A rose is a rose is a rose, 2018, installation
A rose is a rose is a rose, 2018
Multimedia installation, dimensions variable,
comprising the below works and materials:
Dimensions variable (circa 12 metre circumference / 380cm diameter),
soap, lard, marble, jesmonite, fibreglass, various fabrics, shower curtains, steam, aroma
dimensions and duration variable,
animated gif,
Limited edition of 5
40cm diameter,
charcoal powder, pigment, acrylic, on canvas, on board
37cm diameter,
emulsion and charcoal pigment on mirror
Multimedia installation, dimensions variable,
comprising the below works and materials:
- Sculpture – various components
Dimensions variable (circa 12 metre circumference / 380cm diameter),
soap, lard, marble, jesmonite, fibreglass, various fabrics, shower curtains, steam, aroma
- Projection
dimensions and duration variable,
animated gif,
Limited edition of 5
- Paintings x 9
40cm diameter,
charcoal powder, pigment, acrylic, on canvas, on board
- Mirrors x 3
37cm diameter,
emulsion and charcoal pigment on mirror
Chiara Williams was invited, by Liddicoat & Goldhill curator Lucy Howarth, to develop a new site-responsive work for the Project Space, housed under the architectural studio, at the Printworks Margate. Project page: http://www.chiarawilliams.com/a-rose-is-a-rose-is-a-rose.html
When Gertrude Stein wrote “a rose is a rose is a rose...” she was referencing Shakespeare of course, and meant, perhaps, that the name of a thing automatically evokes imagery and emotions; Chiara takes this playful sentence as a genesis for her own contemplation of meaning, identity and beauty.
By spending a prolonged period of time confined to the room, during her week-long residency, Chiara considered the geometry of the Project Space, an odd trapezoid, and the circular printing press wheel (recalling the printing press and the building’s history) as a natural dovetail to her current research – which involves a formal obsession with circular surfaces, supports, framing devices and circuits, and is conceptually concerned with romanticism-versus-pragmatism in literature, cinema, architecture and design. Through these mechanisms and lenses Chiara contemplates the homogenisation of female beauty and the commodification of the female body. She is particularly concerned with the social and cultural constructions of aesthetics and value. Engaging overt-yet-fluid signifiers, ‘A rose is a rose is a rose…’ explores, with ambivalence, the problematics of goddess myths, in the wake of recent phenomena such as #MeToo and the rapidly evolving discourse of gender identity.
The installation employs paintings, sculptures, projections, textiles and visceral ephemera – steam, aroma, lard – alongside weighty materials – jesmonite, marble, copper – to create an immersive interior. It is the intention to re-configure the entire gallery-space, transforming it into something that shifts between a hamam, a temple, and an ode to the bodies that dwell in such places, profane and sacred.
When Gertrude Stein wrote “a rose is a rose is a rose...” she was referencing Shakespeare of course, and meant, perhaps, that the name of a thing automatically evokes imagery and emotions; Chiara takes this playful sentence as a genesis for her own contemplation of meaning, identity and beauty.
By spending a prolonged period of time confined to the room, during her week-long residency, Chiara considered the geometry of the Project Space, an odd trapezoid, and the circular printing press wheel (recalling the printing press and the building’s history) as a natural dovetail to her current research – which involves a formal obsession with circular surfaces, supports, framing devices and circuits, and is conceptually concerned with romanticism-versus-pragmatism in literature, cinema, architecture and design. Through these mechanisms and lenses Chiara contemplates the homogenisation of female beauty and the commodification of the female body. She is particularly concerned with the social and cultural constructions of aesthetics and value. Engaging overt-yet-fluid signifiers, ‘A rose is a rose is a rose…’ explores, with ambivalence, the problematics of goddess myths, in the wake of recent phenomena such as #MeToo and the rapidly evolving discourse of gender identity.
The installation employs paintings, sculptures, projections, textiles and visceral ephemera – steam, aroma, lard – alongside weighty materials – jesmonite, marble, copper – to create an immersive interior. It is the intention to re-configure the entire gallery-space, transforming it into something that shifts between a hamam, a temple, and an ode to the bodies that dwell in such places, profane and sacred.
Hush, 2018, installation
Hush, 2018
installation with carpet, wallpaper, mattress, mirrors, mug, book and paintings.
(paintings: Hush #1 - #11 acrylic and violet pigment on canvas board, 40cm diameter)
Room 304, The Nayland Rock Hotel, At the Violet Hour, Margate, 2018
“She turns and looks a moment in the glass
Hardly aware of her departed lover”
‘The Lost Madonna’, a novel of suspense, had been left in room 304 by a former guest, alongside a broken, round, ceramic bathroom mirror and a stained, golden mattress, slumped against a dusty-pink carpet and peeling woodchip…these artefacts, touched by a fading sunset on Williams’s first visit to the room, seemed to neatly dovetail with the uneasy atmosphere of the sexual encounter that takes place ‘at the violet hour’, between the typist and the clerk, as witnessed by Tiresias in The Waste Land’s ‘Fire Sermon’.
The materiality of the room’s textures, shapes and fleshy colours, together with existing preoccupations in Williams’s artistic output, led her to create a series of vignette paintings derived from film scenes in which female characters are reflected in a mirror or are otherwise constrained by cinematic framing, often in hotel settings. The resulting installation, ‘Hush’, hints at the relationship between a hotel room and the body it encloses, pacing around its perimeters, creating quiet dialogues between tactile surfaces and even, banging one’s head against the wall…
“When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone”
installation with carpet, wallpaper, mattress, mirrors, mug, book and paintings.
(paintings: Hush #1 - #11 acrylic and violet pigment on canvas board, 40cm diameter)
Room 304, The Nayland Rock Hotel, At the Violet Hour, Margate, 2018
“She turns and looks a moment in the glass
Hardly aware of her departed lover”
‘The Lost Madonna’, a novel of suspense, had been left in room 304 by a former guest, alongside a broken, round, ceramic bathroom mirror and a stained, golden mattress, slumped against a dusty-pink carpet and peeling woodchip…these artefacts, touched by a fading sunset on Williams’s first visit to the room, seemed to neatly dovetail with the uneasy atmosphere of the sexual encounter that takes place ‘at the violet hour’, between the typist and the clerk, as witnessed by Tiresias in The Waste Land’s ‘Fire Sermon’.
The materiality of the room’s textures, shapes and fleshy colours, together with existing preoccupations in Williams’s artistic output, led her to create a series of vignette paintings derived from film scenes in which female characters are reflected in a mirror or are otherwise constrained by cinematic framing, often in hotel settings. The resulting installation, ‘Hush’, hints at the relationship between a hotel room and the body it encloses, pacing around its perimeters, creating quiet dialogues between tactile surfaces and even, banging one’s head against the wall…
“When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone”
SCULPTURE 2008 - 2017
"(a) jocular, ornate quality can be found in Chiara Williams work, who is equally as obsessed by objects and materials, found and manufactured, here with an overt set of signifiers at play. She uses copper wire from televisions to form beautifully coloured flowers, with all their association to the feminine and to the Venus and Aphrodite myths which still persist in our post feminist world. Her 'Birth of Venus' lays this bare, with its plump, glistening yolk on ultramarine pigment. The most precious of painters’ pigments, associated with the virgin’s mantle, sits in a compact, the everyday device found in handbags. Nothing is too banal to escape her commentary."
Kate Brindley, KEEPING IT REAL - In Teesside and East London, North South Divine catalogue, 2013
Kate Brindley, KEEPING IT REAL - In Teesside and East London, North South Divine catalogue, 2013
Paintings & Collages 2008 - 2017
Chiara Williams’s paintings often focus on the commodification of the female body; the female as ornament, the female as clotheshorse, the female as Goddess. Women are depicted with eerily featureless faces, airbrushed or obliterated beyond recognition, gazing either at themselves reflected in a mirror, or at the viewer. More recently, the faces and bodies are completely occluded, and our attention is diverted to the draped contours, folds and the highly saturated colours of the garments they are wearing.
With influences as far ranging as Giotto, Poussin and Vogue magazine, Williams is drawn to imagery which exhibits strong formal qualities of colour, line and composition. She is consciously seduced by the aspirational, fantastical and stylised language of pictorial aesthetics transmitted through cultural media, whether the medium is a contemporary lifestyle magazine or a 14th Century fresco.
With influences as far ranging as Giotto, Poussin and Vogue magazine, Williams is drawn to imagery which exhibits strong formal qualities of colour, line and composition. She is consciously seduced by the aspirational, fantastical and stylised language of pictorial aesthetics transmitted through cultural media, whether the medium is a contemporary lifestyle magazine or a 14th Century fresco.
Biography
Working across painting, collage, sculpture and installation, Chiara Williams assembles combinations of imagery, materials and objects, often with an overt set of signifiers at play, to respond to and represent physical sensations, desires and frustrations, often stemming from a broader interest in social and cultural constructions of beauty and value, the homogenisation of female beauty and the commodification of the female body. Williams recognises herself as a colluder operating within cultural conventions. It is the palpable discomfort she feels, about the oscillation between projections of value, empowerment and oppression in the images she sources, which is so at odds with Williams’s conscious feminist outlook, and which draws her to paint these figures again and again.
Williams’s work is in the mima collection (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art), the Paintings in Hospitals Collection, as well as private collections in the UK, Italy, Russia, Germany and USA. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including the 53rd & 54th Venice Biennales in the collateral exhibitions 'Travelling Light' (2009) and 'Afternoon Tea' (2011).
She was brought up in Russia and Italy and studied Fine Art at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford and Audio Visual Production at London Metropolitan University. For over ten years, she lectured in art history, fine art, design and media, working between Venice and London in various educational, gallery and museum contexts such as the Venice Biennale, the British Council and Modern Art Oxford.
In 2008, she founded the artist-led, London-based gallery WW Contemporary Art with fellow artist and curator Debra Wilson. After a maternity break and a year’s travelling residency in the Red Van with her new family, WW was closed in 2016 after 8 years of operation. In October 2016, Williams launched a new peripatetic project called Chiara Williams Contemporary. She lives and works between Hackney Downs, North East London and Margate, Kent.
Williams’s work is in the mima collection (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art), the Paintings in Hospitals Collection, as well as private collections in the UK, Italy, Russia, Germany and USA. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including the 53rd & 54th Venice Biennales in the collateral exhibitions 'Travelling Light' (2009) and 'Afternoon Tea' (2011).
She was brought up in Russia and Italy and studied Fine Art at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford and Audio Visual Production at London Metropolitan University. For over ten years, she lectured in art history, fine art, design and media, working between Venice and London in various educational, gallery and museum contexts such as the Venice Biennale, the British Council and Modern Art Oxford.
In 2008, she founded the artist-led, London-based gallery WW Contemporary Art with fellow artist and curator Debra Wilson. After a maternity break and a year’s travelling residency in the Red Van with her new family, WW was closed in 2016 after 8 years of operation. In October 2016, Williams launched a new peripatetic project called Chiara Williams Contemporary. She lives and works between Hackney Downs, North East London and Margate, Kent.
CV
training
2000 - 2002 MA Audio Visual Production, London Metropolitan University
1999 - 2001 PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education - Teaching Qualification)
1995 - 1998 MA & BA Fine Art, The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford
forthcoming
2019 - Plus One at LIMBO Margate https://www.limboarts.co.uk/plus-one
selected exhibitions
2019 - POW! Painters, Limbo Project Space, Curated by Twinkle Troughton, 8 - 17 March
2019 - LOVE-IN (a cold climate), Limbo Project Space, 14 - 24 February
2018 - 'A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE' , Liddicoat & Goldhill Project Space, The Printworks, Margate 7 September - 6 October.
2018 - At the Violet Hour, The Nayland Rock Hotel, Margate, part of Turner Contemporary's Journeys with 'The Waste Land' programme: http://www.chiarawilliams.com/at-the-violet-hour.html
2017 - Margate Caves Secret Postcard exhibition
margatecaves.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/web-yellow-margate-caves-postcard-catalog-final-5-050917.pdf
2017 - The ships are always there, Chiara Williams Contemporary Art, Crate Space, Margate, UK
http://www.chiarawilliams.com/ships.html
2017 - Littoral Light II 28 July 9pm - 10:30pm, Article 10, organised & curated by Sue Fletcher & Aidan Gray, Ramsgate, UK
2017 - Afternoon Tea 8 - 16 July 2017, Chiara Williams Contemporary Art, part of Margate Festival 2017, Margate, UK,
http://www.chiarawilliams.com/afternoon-tea.html
2017 - Oli Bennett Secret Cards, Westminster School in London (June)
2016 - The Red Van: locations throughout Europe, see website: http://redvan.weebly.com
2015 - The Red Van: locations throughout Europe, see website: http://redvan.weebly.com
2015 - Oli Bennett Secret Cards, Westminster School in London (June)
2013 - Directors' Cut, WW Gallery, 30 October - 30 November
2013 - Together, curated by Enzo Marra 6th June-6th July 2013, Occupy My Time Gallery
2013 - NORTH SOUTH DIVINE at WW Gallery 3rd April – 11th May 2013 on tour at Platform-A Gallery, Middlesbrough 17th May - 20th June 2013
2012 - The Xmas BOGOF, WW Gallery, 19th – 22nd Dec 2012
2012 - 'Collectible' Zeitgeist Project Space, London April 2012
2012 - Diamond Geezer, group show at WW Gallery, May-June 2012
2011 - POW! | WW @ Crunch 2011 The Art & Philosophy Festival at Hay (18 - 20 Nov)
2011 - Oli Bennett Secret Cards, Westminster School in London (June)
2011 - ‘Afternoon Tea', 54 th Venice Biennale, Collateral Exhibition, Venice, Italy (May-June)
2011 - ‘Art Star Superstore' Art Projects, London Art Fair (19-23 Jan)
2010 - 'Austerity Xmas BOGOF', WW Gallery, London (Dec)
2010 - ‘Time' - WW Gallery, London (May-July)
2009 - 'Both Ends Burning', WW Gallery, London (Nov-Dec)
2009 - ‘Noise of Art', East End Arts Club, London (Sept)
2009 - ‘Travelling Light', WW Gallery/Pharos gallery, London and 53 rd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (May - June).
2009 - ‘PG: Parental Guidance', WW Gallery, London (March – April)
2009 - ‘Mink Schmink', WW gallery, London (Jan-Feb)
2008 - ‘I Saw Three Ships', WW gallery, London (Nov-Dec)
2008 - ‘I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night', WW gallery, London (Sep-Oct)
IRLANDA ZANTONE > 2008 - 2009, various exhibitions
This was a year long art project during which time Chiara Williams worked and exhibited under the fictional pseudonym of Irlanda Zantone, producing a number of paintings and works on paper about identity, vanity and unattainable, idealised beauty.
collections /bibliography/publications/press
Works held in mima collection (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) and ‘Paintings in Hospitals' Collection, Kings College Hospital as well as several private collections in UK, Italy, Russia, Germany and USA.
2013 North South Divine catalogue, 'Keeping it Real', Kate Brindley
2011 Resonance 104.4 FM with ALISN, preview discussion for EAO Goldsmiths conference on 24th November
2011 Profile in State Magazine ‘Hackney's Art Beat' by Michaela Freeman
2011 Catalogue for ‘Afternoon Tea' collateral exhibition part of ‘UK at the 54th Venice Biennale', WW Gallery.
2011 London Art Fair Guide
2010 The Mirror, The Ticket - Time at WW Gallery, Martin Newman, 29 May 2010
2009 Catalogue for ‘Travelling Light' collateral exhibition part of ‘UK at the 53rd Venice Biennale', WW Gallery.
2009 Das Heimliche und das Unheimliche Hackney Citizen, Spring 09 online article or pdf
2009 Hackney Gazette - Meet the parents February 2009
2009 Dark art on the Downs Hackney Citizen, Autumn 08 (online article or printed article pdf)
2000 - 2002 MA Audio Visual Production, London Metropolitan University
1999 - 2001 PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education - Teaching Qualification)
1995 - 1998 MA & BA Fine Art, The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford
forthcoming
2019 - Plus One at LIMBO Margate https://www.limboarts.co.uk/plus-one
selected exhibitions
2019 - POW! Painters, Limbo Project Space, Curated by Twinkle Troughton, 8 - 17 March
2019 - LOVE-IN (a cold climate), Limbo Project Space, 14 - 24 February
2018 - 'A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE' , Liddicoat & Goldhill Project Space, The Printworks, Margate 7 September - 6 October.
2018 - At the Violet Hour, The Nayland Rock Hotel, Margate, part of Turner Contemporary's Journeys with 'The Waste Land' programme: http://www.chiarawilliams.com/at-the-violet-hour.html
2017 - Margate Caves Secret Postcard exhibition
margatecaves.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/web-yellow-margate-caves-postcard-catalog-final-5-050917.pdf
2017 - The ships are always there, Chiara Williams Contemporary Art, Crate Space, Margate, UK
http://www.chiarawilliams.com/ships.html
2017 - Littoral Light II 28 July 9pm - 10:30pm, Article 10, organised & curated by Sue Fletcher & Aidan Gray, Ramsgate, UK
2017 - Afternoon Tea 8 - 16 July 2017, Chiara Williams Contemporary Art, part of Margate Festival 2017, Margate, UK,
http://www.chiarawilliams.com/afternoon-tea.html
2017 - Oli Bennett Secret Cards, Westminster School in London (June)
2016 - The Red Van: locations throughout Europe, see website: http://redvan.weebly.com
2015 - The Red Van: locations throughout Europe, see website: http://redvan.weebly.com
2015 - Oli Bennett Secret Cards, Westminster School in London (June)
2013 - Directors' Cut, WW Gallery, 30 October - 30 November
2013 - Together, curated by Enzo Marra 6th June-6th July 2013, Occupy My Time Gallery
2013 - NORTH SOUTH DIVINE at WW Gallery 3rd April – 11th May 2013 on tour at Platform-A Gallery, Middlesbrough 17th May - 20th June 2013
2012 - The Xmas BOGOF, WW Gallery, 19th – 22nd Dec 2012
2012 - 'Collectible' Zeitgeist Project Space, London April 2012
2012 - Diamond Geezer, group show at WW Gallery, May-June 2012
2011 - POW! | WW @ Crunch 2011 The Art & Philosophy Festival at Hay (18 - 20 Nov)
2011 - Oli Bennett Secret Cards, Westminster School in London (June)
2011 - ‘Afternoon Tea', 54 th Venice Biennale, Collateral Exhibition, Venice, Italy (May-June)
2011 - ‘Art Star Superstore' Art Projects, London Art Fair (19-23 Jan)
2010 - 'Austerity Xmas BOGOF', WW Gallery, London (Dec)
2010 - ‘Time' - WW Gallery, London (May-July)
2009 - 'Both Ends Burning', WW Gallery, London (Nov-Dec)
2009 - ‘Noise of Art', East End Arts Club, London (Sept)
2009 - ‘Travelling Light', WW Gallery/Pharos gallery, London and 53 rd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (May - June).
2009 - ‘PG: Parental Guidance', WW Gallery, London (March – April)
2009 - ‘Mink Schmink', WW gallery, London (Jan-Feb)
2008 - ‘I Saw Three Ships', WW gallery, London (Nov-Dec)
2008 - ‘I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night', WW gallery, London (Sep-Oct)
IRLANDA ZANTONE > 2008 - 2009, various exhibitions
This was a year long art project during which time Chiara Williams worked and exhibited under the fictional pseudonym of Irlanda Zantone, producing a number of paintings and works on paper about identity, vanity and unattainable, idealised beauty.
collections /bibliography/publications/press
Works held in mima collection (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) and ‘Paintings in Hospitals' Collection, Kings College Hospital as well as several private collections in UK, Italy, Russia, Germany and USA.
2013 North South Divine catalogue, 'Keeping it Real', Kate Brindley
2011 Resonance 104.4 FM with ALISN, preview discussion for EAO Goldsmiths conference on 24th November
2011 Profile in State Magazine ‘Hackney's Art Beat' by Michaela Freeman
2011 Catalogue for ‘Afternoon Tea' collateral exhibition part of ‘UK at the 54th Venice Biennale', WW Gallery.
2011 London Art Fair Guide
2010 The Mirror, The Ticket - Time at WW Gallery, Martin Newman, 29 May 2010
2009 Catalogue for ‘Travelling Light' collateral exhibition part of ‘UK at the 53rd Venice Biennale', WW Gallery.
2009 Das Heimliche und das Unheimliche Hackney Citizen, Spring 09 online article or pdf
2009 Hackney Gazette - Meet the parents February 2009
2009 Dark art on the Downs Hackney Citizen, Autumn 08 (online article or printed article pdf)