Amanda Williams
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“Your love of bird watching could have caused your death that day. Your Harvard degree does not insure your safety”—black (study for 06.22.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“You wish you could see the black on the inside of Stevie Wonder’s eyelids so you too could have inner visions”—-black, v2 (study for 09.24.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“You refuse to stop saying ‘irregardless’ despite knowing that it is in fact NOT a word.”—-black (study for 06.12.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“You’re not African-American, you’re black”—black (study for 08.20.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What Black is this you say?—-“Until the day he died, my father drove out to Pullman Bank on 111th (even after it was bought by US Bank) to do his banking because it was the only bank that would give him a small business loan to start his accounting firm in 1977; loyalty”—-black (study for 06.05.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What Black is this you say?—-“I thought red kool-aid was juice til I was 10 years old”—black (study for 06.03.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-You still wanna cop that Gordon Gartrelle knock-off Denise made for Theo; two-tone flap in the back”—black (study for 06.18.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“You put sugar on your Frosted Flakes”—-black (study for 06.06.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?: ’Marvin Gaye singing his version of the national anthem so soft and sexy that it made us instantly forget that there was even an original version’—black (study for 06.03.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“Just because I’m black and you happen to know me doesn’t make me your black friend.”—black (study for 06.23.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“You have to survive through alternative economic systems and are often met with extra-legal consequences”—-black (study for 06.25.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“You can recite the names of more unarmed black people killed by police violence, than you can the names of black people holding U.S. Patents for innovation.”—black (study for 07.15.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“None of your business”—black (11.06.20), 2020. Oil, mixed media on wood panel, 20 x 20 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“You thought getting Obama elected meant you could take a break from blackness”—black (study for 08.09.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“Pink Oil has smoothed over so much and solved so many problems I’ve contemplated using it for cooking oil AND as glue”—black (study 06.07.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“You’re hard headed AND tender headed at the same time”—black (study for 09.12.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“All the too cool for school Dads on our block growing up who called me ‘suga’, could expertly hold a convo, cut grass, join in on the young cats street ball game, and never forget to wave bye to you as they left for work, ALL WHILE perfectly dangling what appeared to be the same exact toothpick from their mouths”—-black (study for 06.21.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say—“That’s why Black people ain’t never gone get nowhere”—black (study for 08.12.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“You didn’t know the word ‘fat’, existed when you were growing up. Everyone you knew described black women in particular, as ‘heavy-set’, ‘big-boned’, full-figured’, healthy, and of course, ‘thick’; ‘skinny’ was not something you wanted to be.”—black, v2 (study for 07.11.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“A west side imma snatch-yo-edges-back-with-a-hand-gesture black”—black (study for 08.27.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“You’re always confused about why anyone would think you would want to celebrate suffragists when black woman are STILL suffering.”—black (study for 08.27.20), 2020. Watercolor on paper, 7 x 10 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“You’re not African-American, you’re black”—black (08.20.20), 2020. Oil on linen stretched over panel, 60 x 60 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“Apparently even Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s Lives Matter now.”—black (06.17.20), 2020. Oil, mixed media on wood panel, 20 x 20 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“You wish you could see the black on the inside of Stevie Wonder’s eyelids so you too could have inner visions”—-black, v2 (09.24.20), 2020. Oil on linen stretched over panel, 20 x 20 inches.
Amanda Williams. What Black is this you say?—-“Until the day he died, my father drove out to Pullman Bank on 111th (even after it was bought by US Bank) to do his banking because it was the only bank that would give him a small business loan to start his accounting firm in 1977; loyalty”—-black (06.05.20), 2020. Oil on linen stretched over panel, 60 x 60 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—“You thought getting Obama elected meant you could take a break from blackness”—black (08.09.20) 2020. Oil, mixed media on wood panel, 60 x 60 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“You secretly believe praying over your smothered pork chops reduces the risk of hypertension and calories”—-black (06.06.20), 2020. Oil, mixed media on wood panel, 20 x 20 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“It’s easier for young black men to rip an entire ATM out of a bank drive-thru machine and crack it open to get to the money than it is for them to get a job, Bank Account or Loan from that same bank”—black (06.03.20), 2020. Oil, mixed media on wood panel, 20 x 20 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“Your brown is blacker than thou”—-black (study for 07.06.20), 2020. Oil, mixed media on wood panel, 20 x 20 inches.
Amanda Williams. What black is this you say?—-“Your mother calmly explaining to you all from her perch in the front seat of the car, that you had better not embarrass her nor the race once you get inside Evergreen Plaza.”—-black (study for 06.11.20), 2020. Oil, mixed media on wood panel. 20 x 20 inches.
Rhona Hoffman Gallery is pleased to present What black is this you say?, an exhibition of new works by Chicago-based artist and architect Amanda Williams. New watercolor, oil and mixed media paintings interrogate the complexities, variations and degrees of difference in black as color and identity.
What black is this you say? is a multi-platform color project conceived on June 2, 2020, otherwise known as Blackout Tuesday, as the artist reconsidered social media protest and the “black out” of communication:
I’ll be honest. I wasn’t feeling the black out. I hate stuff like that, but I caved. Wanted to be in solidarity. But Color is everything to me. You can’t just say “black”...which one? So I’m gonna inaugurate a different black each day until I don’t feel like it anymore. Why? Cuz I’m black and I can!
Starting on June 3rd, Williams identified a different “black” each day via her personal Instagram. The ubiquity of the platform was used to imagine black as nuanced and highly variable, and to reject black as monolithic. Funny, poignant and sometimes-site-specific captions accompany each post. The resulting feed is an expanse of black shades, textures and colloquialisms from personal and collective histories.
Williams returns to her first loves—oil painting, color, and color mixing—to translate this body of work from digital gesture into a physical exploration of black abstraction. The captions of the original posts serve as titles of the work. No pre-made black paints are used; instead, a deep range of purples, browns and greens are at play, evoking what she calls “the sensation of blackness.” As with color, a range of techniques are used to create distinct surface treatments.
Similar to her breakout painted house series Color(ed) Theory, this chromatic and cultural exploration of blackness is both universal and biographical. The viewer is invited on a simultaneous adventure in soul and color, to explore the multitude of ‘Black.’