Frank James Williams: Standing Still
A combination of pitched psychological tension with intuitive illusion, Frank James Williams unfolds contemporary Black Noir with his exhibition, Standing Still. On view are new paintings with a few early selections of drawings dating from the 1980s. His subjects are family, friends, and acquaintances in unassuming dress. What pushes his paintings beyond ordinary into extraordinary are the subjects’ unrelenting gaze, their relationship to architecture, which is articulated yet austere, high and low light rendered in color, and their enigmatic shadows that become performers stretching across the painting—all are equal correspondents suspended in a surreal state of animation and mystery.
Upon visiting the studio of Frank James Williams, I was transported to the early Noir films I grew up with: espionage, resistance, decline, and grit, all dramatized in haunting chiaroscuro. In the 1970s through 90s, the New Black Cinema began subverting those early noir strategies in what critic and cultural theorist Manthia Diawara called “Black Noir.” Williams’ paintings take shape from this period, where Black realism and culture shine a light through figure, shadow, architecture, and color.
Frank James Williams was born in Chicago (1959). He attended the University of Oklahoma, where he received two BofA degrees. In 1985 Williams was accepted into UCLA’s prestigious MFA program, where such luminaries as Paul McCarthy, Chris Burton, Alexis Smith, William Brice, Charles Ray and Don Suggs were leading the program.
Williams received a fellowship from Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (1989), where he studied with Jacob Lawrence and met Gwen Knight Lawrence, a recognized artist in her own right, who became a friend and advisor during his residency. In 1995 Williams was the recipient of the first California African American Museum’s (CAAM) Artist-in-Residence sponsored by Seagram’s Gin (1995) culminating in a one-person exhibition, Frozen Moments.