Bernard Williams investigates the complexities of American history and culture through painting, sculpture, and installation. Within these broad arenas, his work seeks a kind of open-ended dialogue, addressing identity, flattening hierarchies, and questioning who we are collectively. Risk, adventure, conquest, personal status, privilege, and mechanical development are some of the thematic concepts that he pushes into form. Williams often begins in the archives of museums and libraries. Documentary photographs might become maps for building sculptures as he attempts to merge the historical roots and current expressions of cultural material as diverse as NASCAR, Abstract Expressionism, the history of flight (including Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman), and the Mississippi River routes charted by the French explorer Robert de La Salle. …see the entire article in the print version of January/February’s Sculpture magazine.
