RECEPTION WITH THE ARTIST
SATURDAY, JAN 14,
5:30 to 7:30

Larry Becker Contemporary Art is pleased to announce ‘Positive Echo’, a solo exhibition of new small paintings by Mark Williams, which begins December 30, 2016 and continues through March 4, 2017.

Over some years working with Mark Williams, we have presented primarily much larger paintings, beginning with a group exhibition (12/2011-2/2012), “ ‘8’-Eight American Abstract Artists”, selected from the seventy-fifth anniversary exhibition of that venerable group held at the Crane Arts Building in Philadelphia the month just previous. Having followed his work prior to that and including him in several group exhibitions since then, we are fortunate now to present his first solo exhibition here.

In 2016, he finished twenty-three years of full-time employment handling, installing, and caring for the work of important masters at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (during which he managed to paint and have exhibitions equivalent to full-time, continuing to develop a fulfilling career as an artist). He realized this year that his studio schedule, as well as the type of light available, would radically change, and decided not to waste any time wondering how this would affect his painting.
Instead he embarked upon a series of very small paintings with a palette limited to just three colors: Black, White, Grey. Each work keeps only that phrase as its title, and he simply numbered them, roughly chronologically, after many were completed. Generously, he invited us to choose as many as desired for the exhibition.

The front room of our two-room gallery now illuminates all twenty-seven, somehow un-crowded, in a tribute to this fresh burst of energy from this long-devoted artist. He clearly savors this moment of relative freedom, which for so many artists can sometimes be a shock, though usually momentary. That is probably because the cost of that freedom can be pressure and expectations, but Williams seems to be using that to his advantage.

As a complement to this cool and spare color range, and for a glimpse into some other areas of his palette and approach, in the second room are seven paintings, in this case also relatively small, that span several recent years going back to 2007 in which he painted a demure, softly glowing work titled “Proclaim” during a residency granted at the Joseph and Anni Albers Foundation. Other works from the years following reveal subtle shifts in ways of underpainting, masking, revealing, obscuring, and releasing some control, while remaining true to his dedication to the purely vertical/horizontal. In ways that assure that his abstinence from curves or diagonals is not a lack but an impetus to make vectors and movement within a kind of stillness, he “does beautifully,” as Robert Storr wrote in 2006 of his work, make “images that squarely locate us in the present and reawaken the senses dulled by quotidian hurry and inattention.”
Though not predicting the future, he has for sure generated in these new paintings a spring forward.

Numerous collections private and public include notably Werner Kramarsky, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; The Staatliche Museum, Berlin, to name a few. Besides Philadelphia, Mark Williams’ many exhibitions in galleries and institutions include solos in New York, Dallas, Zurich, Berlin, and Tokyo.
*****

For inquiries, updates, and some images, please see our website at www.artnet.com/lbecker.html; or call the gallery at 215/925-5389. The gallery is regularly open to the public on Fridays and Saturdays from 11AM to 5 PM, and on weekdays with an appointment advised.

----------------------

Front room counterclockwise from right of entryway, at window:

1. b/w/g #1, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 10” x 8”
2. b/w/g #2, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 10” x 8”
3. b/w/g #3, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
4. b/w/g #4, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
5. b/w/g #5, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
6. b/w/g #6, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 18” x 14”
7. b/w/g #7, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 8” x 8”
8. b/w/g #8, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas 18” x 14”
9. b/w/g #9, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 10” x 8”
10. b/w/g #10, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 10” x 8”
11. b/w/g #11, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 12” x 10”
12. bb/w/g #12, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 18” x 14”
13. b/w/g #13, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 18” x 14”
14. b/w/g #14, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
15. b/w/g #15, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 12” x 10”
16. b/w/g #16, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
17. b/w/g #17, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
18. b/w/g #18, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
19. b/w/g #19, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
20. b/w/g #20, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 18” x 14”
21. b/w/g #21, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
22. b/w/g #22, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
23. b/w/g #23, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
24. b/w/g #24, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”
25. b/w/g #25, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 7” x 5”
26. b/w/g #26, 2016 Oil enamel on canvas; 7” x 5”
27. b/w/g #27, 2016 Oil enamel on wood panel; 10” x 8”

Second room counterclockwise from right, at entry:

28. Untitled, 2011 Epoxy enamel and oil enamel on wood panel; 24” x 20”
29. Untitled (2011-50), 2011 Epoxy enamel on wood panel; 24” x 24”
30. Proclaim / AF 1, 2007 Acrylic on wood panel; 18” x 14”
31. Untitled (2011-63), 2011 Epoxy enamel on wood panel; 24” x 24”
32. Untitled (2012-10), 2012 Oil enamel and acrylic on canvas; 24" x 20"
33. The Chance (1075), 2010 Oil enamel on canvas; 24” x 20”
34. Under Pressure (1066), 2010 Oil enamel and acrylic on canvas; 24” x 20”

Déjà Vu: Mark Williams’s Positive Echo