Kent Williams: Eklektikos
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Individual Artists
Kent Williams: Eklektikos Details
Los Angeles–based artist Kent Williams (born 1962) has built up a formidable reputation as a leading contemporary figurative painter, alongside his thriving career as a creator of graphic novels. Williams’ strong, gestural realism, combined with areas of arresting detail, exhibits abstract and neo-expressionistic sensibilities, as well as autobiographical elements: favorite models, friends, and the artist himself all play a role in the human story of his paintings. This new monograph presents recent paintings completed between 2007 and 2011. As critic Peter Frank explains in one of the catalogue essays, “Williams’ unlikely, often dreamlike naturalism, faithful to appearances but not at all to reality--a kind of supernaturalism--relies on an entirely confident and convincing kind of figure painting, one that acknowledges but does not honor the verities of the body.”
Reviews
I initially refrained from purchasing this collection due to the price-to-page-count ratio even though I have been a follower of Kent Williams' work for many, many years--has it really been over two decades? I could not resist once it became available on Amazon for the current sale price however, and am pleased with the purchase for this amount. It an excellent collection of the artist's current work, which is striking to behold. There is a vitality to this series of paintings that is very refreshing, and the artist's figurative work is (as always) topnotch. As both introductions* discuss, it is interesting to consider the spatial relationship of the subjects to their environments, be it as a dilettante or fellow artist studying technique.This collection is not as large as the excellent 2008 AMALGAM collection, but is still an impressive and well-put together publication. Be warned, the customary intentional blank pages that frequent art collections are present in this volume, although not to the degree I usually expect (I only include this as some buyers are surprised when they discover the practice). Almost every painting is viewable online if one feels the need to seek them out, which may be worth the effort if unsure about acquiring the collection. I prefer having book in hand while studying art, and recommend making the investment.*Side note: the Alex Ross that writes the second introduction is not Alex Ross the painter/illustrator but rather the New Mexico critic, curator, and writer. This does not diminish the perceptiveness of the introduction, but merits knowing for anyone whose knowledge of both artists stems from their respective comic book work and may be curious what the aforementioned artist Ross might have said about Williams.
