In Sue Williams’ most recent large canvases, the artist maps out fresh territory once again. Two years ago, the artist’s paintings were a mass of frenetic lines and colors, layered bodies in pandemonium.
The artist’s new canvases become more minimal and expansive. Every line is formed by its own charged autonomy, each finding its place among the others. Images unwind and become calligraphic. Curved brushstrokes reverse back on themselves as they cross the canvas, fluid, lucid, and provocative, a current of energy suspended in a neutral field.
Williams’ characteristic vocabulary of distorted figuration attains a new concentration that is partially indebted to the turbulence of the previous work. Tension exists not only between objects (hands, feet, shoes, heels, etc.) , but also between the incongruities of line and color.