1275 Minnesota St /
Jenkins Johnson Gallery
Philemona Williamson: Entangled in Truth
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 11, 2021 | 2-5 pm PST
Artist in Conversation with Dr. Jacqueline Francis: Saturday, September 11, 2021 | 3-4 pm PST
Followed by a book signing of Lubaya’s Quiet Roar by Marilyn Nelson. Paintings by Philemona Williamson.
Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, is pleased to present Entangled in Truth, Philemona Williamson’s first solo exhibition in San Francisco. The exhibition will be accompanied with an essay by Dr. Jacqueline Francis, Writer, Critic, Art Historian and Professor at California College of the Arts.
Philemona Williamson’s narrative paintings deal with gender, race and adolescence, sourced from her own memories. The work explores the tenuous bridge between adolescence and adulthood, encapsulating the intersection of innocence and experience at its most piercing and poignant moment. The lush color palette and dreamlike positioning of the figures ensures that their vulnerability – of age, of race, of sexual identity – is seen as strength and not as weakness. Williamson explains, “My figures navigate a world of uncertainty as they search for understanding—both internally and in ever-shifting environments. I see the figures as vehicles to explore the existence of the most vulnerable adolescents, those evolving people of color, grappling with what will define and identify them. My paintings give voice and space to invisibility.”
In her exhibition essay, “Disruption Toward Hope” Dr. Jacqueline Francis writes: “The new paintings (included in Entangled in Truth) chart the cultural and political landscape of unspecified lands, and the individuals and groups who traverse them. Dismayed by national politics and rhetoric of recent years, Williamson has given the paintings ominous titles that offer advice and warning. With each picture, she seeks to break the static notions of identity formed around race, gender, sexuality, and other social categories. Williamson insists that people must map their own journeys and fashion identifications and ways of living which suit them. Forging a path means taking risks. Williamson’s figures, however vulnerable, seem unbowed by the trials they face. In these compositions, she gives us enigmatic protagonists who, locked in a moment of time in indeterminate locations, often appear in peril. Simply put, things are far from right in these paintings.”
Williamson describes herself as a narrative painter. She thinks of her narratives more like poems than linear stories. She hopes, like a poem, everytime you come to her work you discover something new. Her paintings depict several visual narratives at once, shifting in time and theme. Her adolescent figures are placed in strange or awkward positions, reflecting on their feelings or their current state. They exist in their own world, and we are merly happening upon it. Many of her figures touch each other or intertwine. In the piece Perilous Exchange, the artist paints her figures piled on each other, reflecting the artist’s desire to be able to hold her loved ones during COVID-19. There is an overwhelming sense of physicality. A recurring theme for Williamson is safety, and the desperation found in these figures intimates to the viewer their desire for stability and connection. Dr. Frances writes: “The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a major shift in her (Williamson) routine. Following shelter-in-place orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, she has worked without models. Shelter-in-place orders meant that she spent more time alone in the studio, where she quietly painted with urgency.”