Living in Brilliant Suspension: Didier William

Jan zèv atistik ki fè pati Viv pandye nan briyans: Didier William montre l, atis miltidisiplinè Didier William eksplore relasyon ant kò a, tè a, ak souvni ak istwa ki kache. Tablo William yo se konpozit konplèks ki melanje medyòm ak teknik penti, desen ak gravi, kolaj ak skilpti bwa.

Pandan y ap kòmante eksperyans imigran an ak vi kinetik moun ki deplase, zèv William yo eksplore espas sa yo, yo kapte koneksyon ant jenerasyon ak souvni an pati atravè teksti ak materyalite vibran e briyan yo – sifas pentire distenktif yo touchan epi kaptivan nan yon pèspektiv estetik.

Gwo tablo teknik melanje li yo plen kò ewoyik ki raple zèv Rubens. San mande padon, yo refize definisyon jan ni pou yo ta mare yo sou tè a. Yo pandye nan lè a tankou y ap vole oubyen kòmsi yo pare pou rantre nan yon lòt dimansyon egzistans.

Avèk zèv ki pwodui ant 2021 ak 2025, Viv Pandye nan briyans ofri refleksyon powetik sou resi kontanporen sou zak viv e limitasyon apatenans. Nan Viv Pandye nan briyans nou kontre imaj ki pwopoze imajinè a ak metafizik la kòm espas liberatwa ke stabilite ki pa chita nan gravitasyon bay pouvwa.

My desire is to remove gravity from the painting and force everything to exist in suspension, where space is a constant point of contestation. Collage and print naturally seem to jettison all those conventions and rules of groundedness, in their material making and in the physical building of the painting’s surface.

I imagine flight as a kind of liberation, as a denial of gravity; the capacity to escape one’s reality no matter what that might be. I think of flight as an aspirational condition. I think of it as freedom. These characters are unbounded by a gravitational reality. I want to think ambitiously as to what that would enable us to do. There is a liberatory capacity to flight that excites me.

In my painting practice, I want every square inch of the painting to matter. I want every part of the surface to be communicating something. It is in the surfaces, in the textures, in the colors where meaning resides.

— Didier William

Didier William (b. 1983) is originally from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. William earned a BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University School of Art. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Bronx Museum of Art, the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, the Museum at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Carnegie Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Figge Museum Art Museum. He is represented by James Fuentes Gallery in New York, Altman Siegel Gallery in San Francisco, and Galerie Peter Kilchmann in Zurich, Switzerland. William was an artist-in-residence at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation in Brooklyn, a 2018 recipient of the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2020 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grants, a 2021 recipient of a Pew Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, and a 2023 recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant. He has taught at several institutions, including Yale School of Art, Vassar College, Columbia University, UPenn, and SUNY Purchase. William is currently associate professor of expanded print at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.