Randy Williams
Randy Williams was born in New York City in 1947. He maintains two careers, one as an active visual artist and another as an educator developing new methods of presenting the visual arts in Colleges, Universities, Schools and Museums. A Professor of Studio and Art Education at Manhattanville College, Randy Willliams is also an instructor and educational consultant to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is Artistic Director of the New York State Summer School of the Visual Arts in which he has been a master teacher for thirty–two years.
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Williams holds a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from New York University and a Masters Degree in Art Education from Sir George Williams University in Montreal. He has won numerous prizes and awards, including a 1982 Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts to the American Academy in Rome.
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He also has been recognized by the New York State Council on the Arts, Visual Arts Division, and the New York Foundation of the Arts with a Fellowship in sculpture. He received the Manhattanville College Excellence Award in 1995 and 2007.
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Randy Williams’ work has been the subject of more than thirty-five national and international solo exhibitions. He has had scores of special projects, and has exhibited in over 100 group exhibitions. His artwork is in a number of private art collections.
Artist's Statement:
The content of my artwork explores the tangible experiences of my past as well as the current events that I experience presently. In a very simple manner my artwork acts as a form of reconstructive surgery. Often I explore elements of my past that were harmful to me as a Black American. When I was young I was restrained and incapable of correcting the injustices inflicted upon me. Now that I am older and stronger and have a capacity to view the world differently, I often use my artwork to comment on a personal history that must be illuminated if I wish to proceed with unwavering integrity.
As an artist and a teacher I find my self excavating repressed memories, and I must be careful not to cover recent experiences with un-toppled soil. My archeological digging often brings back painful memories and I address those memories with an aesthetic intervention. My art work is never created in anger. I work objectively, often researching area and experiences of my past that I can only vaguely recollect. Books can remember what the mind can not, that is why they are always present in my work.
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For more information, visit randywilliams.net