Artist Bio:

Peter Williams was an African American painter based in Wilmington, Delaware who was represented by the Luis de Jesus gallery in Los Angeles, CA. He was born in 1952 and died in August of 2021. His work had been featured in many permanent and private collections across the country and he had been painting for over 45 years. Williams' work is predominantly centered around the diverse experiences of black Americans, with a large body of work covering topics of black oppression both historically and in contemporary spaces. 

About the Piece(s):

The piece “Geegee (He had red Hair)” was made in 2019 and is a 16 x 20 inch painting made with oil based enamel and graphite on canvas. The piece depicts a face with exaggerated features. The eyes, nose, and mouth are comically large and semi-abstracted while the flowing orange/red hair comprises the majority of the composition. The piece uses a bright and bold color palette of oranges, yellows, and reds, and blues. The piece also incorporates a pointillism technique in the construction of the face. Beyond the more formal elements, this piece centers around the idea of black exodus. Williams creates fictional characters and narratives to tell the stories of African Americans from a fresh perspective and as a way to fuse his own experience with the experiences of others on a more global scale. This piece represents a fictional character that Williams has created, as a humorous yet discursive way of redefining the black gaze. This piece uses bold colors, abstraction, and exaggerated features to capture the attention of the viewer and start a conversation about confrontation, consciousness, and conscience.This work is unapologetically Black and centers around telling the stories of Black people from an authentic perspective. This piece is bold and attention grabbing, as Williams goal was to expose people to new and different perspectives other than their own.