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Evelyn Williams at England & Co - Brief Article

Art in America, Nov, 2000 by Michael Duncan

In her first London show in almost 20 years, Welsh artist Evelyn Williams presented fables of relationships. Trust between women, the frustrating silences of men, possessive love and the hesitant anxiety of a mother are conveyed through the variously piercing, loving, defenseless or isolate eyes of the middle-aged women who appear in nearly all the paintings and pastels that were on view. This tough-minded, finely textured work provides a subtle alternative to the more predictable angst and fleshy excesses evident in the works of fellow British figurative painters Lucian Freud and Jenny Saville.

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Williams took up painting full time only in the 1980s, after years of making sculptural reliefs that presented more generalized, symbolic statements about the human condition. These paintings, all from the past five years, chart hard-earned personal territory, focusing attention on the crux of long-term relationships. The series of small paintings called "Questions I-VIII" (1998) presents a woman confronting a resistant, withdrawn man seen in shadowy profile. In "Mother and Child I-IV" (1998), the eyes of both a woman and her baby convey their respective needs for escape from the bond.

Light or darkness seems to emanate directly from the pupils of Williams's subjects' eyes, revealing the psychological tension inherent in the gaze. The different series of paintings employ subtle changes in facial expression, movement or eye contact to suggest more complex narratives. In "All the Days of My Life I-II" (1999), a blindingly lit woman stares dully, not quite at a shadowed man, whose head tilts, as if coldly trying to defend himself. Suggesting complex interactions through the most basic gestures or looks, the paintings convey the elements of connection and disconnection that exist in every close relationship.

Spiritual isolation is the norm in Williams's world. "Nature of Love I-IV" (1999) presents the troubled relations of a kind of Adam and Eve. Set in a gray-toned garden, the man and woman approach each other tentatively, recoil, reconcile and finally embrace, toughened by their knowledge of each other. For Williams, the most reliable bond seems to be between women. The two almost mirror-image protagonists of "Two Women I-II" (1997) face off, each caressing the other's head with a thick, weathered hand. Along the bottoms of the paintings, the couple's sleeves form a single broad, continuous coil. From an artist as wary as Williams, the potential suggested by this continuity speaks for a strong feminism, one earned slowly, through knowing life.

Evelyn Williams at England & Co - Brief Article

Art in America, Nov, 2000 by Michael Duncan

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