PRINT AND MODERN MOSAIC
SIXTEEN GALLERY | 3 – 9 NOVEMBER
PRINT AND MODERN MOSAIC
ROBERT WILLIAMS AND GARY WILLIAMS
Print And Modern Mosaic is an exhibition of two artists with two projects: Reflexivity over Romanticism, the outcome of the development of 30 new mosaics by Robert Williams, and Drawn to Stories a collection of lino printing blocks and wood engravings by Gary Williams.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
ROBERT WILLIAMS
REFLEXIVITY OVER ROMANTICISM
This exhibition is the outcome of the development of 30 new mosaics, created with recycled, painted and stained glass, to help me explore linked personal and wider contemporary themes. These include, for example, compassion, tolerance, diversity, love, belonging, fragmentation, joy, hope, harmony, division and flux.
Experimentation to constantly improve my insights and skills is important while, at the same time, it is also vital for me to viscerally feel, with my hands, creative processes like painting and cutting glass.
These creative interests are grounded in my own life experiences but also within healthcare practice, research and writing about fathers, families, health, wellbeing and social change. My art cannot, honourably, ignore the lives of others.
Critical evaluation of my work is important, I believe, to help me create Modern visual images that are, hopefully, conceptually well informed and emotionally expressive. At the same time, I am trying to avoid an overarching rationality that may blunt expression of my own and other’s feelings.
My practice explores contemporary tensions and relationships, between the figurative and abstract and between the individual and the structural social dimensions of our lives. Conceptually, I am informed by research and evidence, rather than influential postmodern beliefs underpinned by relativism, fatalism, individualism and romanticism. Modernism, for me, offers the dynamism and optimism necessary to understand and explore our individual and shared experiences but also allows me, personally, to strive to create work that is both transformative and evokes reflexivity.
GARY WILLIAMS
DRAWN TO STORIES
Although I’m a printmaker my starting point is always drawing. Many prints start off as images captured in my sketch books, but initial drawings can also come from a snippet of poetry, music, prose, a folk tale, memories or just day dreaming. Once I have drawing, I will only then choose the printing technique I want to follow, but my aim is to always retain the spirit of the drawing whilst allowing the printing technique to bring out its own qualities whether in monochrome or colour.
My prints on show at Sixteen are largely produced using lino printing blocks and wood engraving, sometimes mixing techniques on a single print. However, I am also experimenting with etchings, drypoint and collograph prints.
For me the story behind or within the image is vital and whilst I may have my own narrative it may not be the same as yours and that’s fine with me.
All editions are handprinted and strictly limited to no more than 20-25 prints, often fewer, and they will not be printed again. Once I have achieved the technical challenge of printing the image as close as I can to how I imagined it, I’m already ready to move onto the next project.
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