Zeke Williams: Pick and Pop

October 07 - November 11,2023

From Erin Cluley Gallery:

"Throughout his career, Dallas-based artist Zeke Williams, has made use of digitally generated patterns in painting and — since 2020 — on wood. Though focused on the iconography of American landscapes and aviary, Williams’ recent works on wood build on artistic signatures first explored in his earlier abstract paintings. On canvas and wood, the artist’s experiments in color, composition, and patternmaking compose great spectacle. Pick and Pop, brings together a selection of large-scale wood landscapes from the artist’s newest body of work. These works exalt and expose Williams’ dedication to artistic spectacle, Golden Age cinema, and nature.

Pick and Pop, puts an ironic spin on the artist’s method, often reproducing the same landscape over and over, emulating the seriality of filmstrips. Williams’ process starts by laying out his compositions digitally, which are then transferred to a CNC machine to render them in wood relief. In this body of work, Williams’ replicable landscapes — inspired by childhood visits to these monuments with his Grandparents — are spliced and sutured together.

An avid watcher of Golden Age cinema, specifically the work of director and choreographer Busby Berkeley, Williams takes inspirations from Hollywood glitz and glamor. His large works on wood demand viewers recognize their presence: intricate and disorienting geometry recall the militant choreography of films like 42^nd Street and Footlight Parade. Williams renders in oil-glazed birch what Berkeley, and other devotees of spectacle, capture on film. Pick and Pop invites viewers to rethink the nature of monumentality in Williams’ career and his filmic inspirations.

Pick and Pop will be Zeke William’s fifth solo exhibition with Erin Cluley Gallery.

William’s first solo exhibition with the gallery was in 2015."

Reception: October 14, 2023 | 4-7 pm

Erin Cluley Gallery 150 Manufacturing Street, Suite 210
Dallas , Texas 75212
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