Antoine Williams’ practice is an investigation of power, perception, semiotics, and fear as they relate to institutional inequities. Influenced by sci-fi literature from such authors as Octavia Butler and H.P. Lovecraft, Williams has created a mythology, concerning the complexities of contemporary Black life. Through mixed-media installations, paintings, drawings, and collages, he has created a mythos populated with beings that are born out of the fragility of what Ta-Nehisi Coates refers to as the “dream.” In addition, Williams is interested in making the personal, public, and draws from his own experiences from a rural, working-class upbringing in North Carolina that relate to wider contemporary concerns of race, class and masculinity. Inspired by a poem by Amiri Baraka, these beings live in the intangible spaces that exist within the contradictions of the human condition.
(Excerpt and image above selected from grant proposal. Artwork is copyright of the artist.)