Stephen Williams, This land is fractured, filled with birds and hills, fading into the glistenings of hand held water. “These colors, this time, has never moved here before.” (the soft glow of lead fueled fires and the far off flutter of smoke stained wings)
Stephen Williams
“…and the far off flutter of smoke stained wings.”
November 8, 2025 - January 10, 2026
Opening reception November 8, 2025, 1 - 3 pm
OS Projects presents “…and the far off flutter of smoke stained wings.”, an exhibition of paintings and sculptures by Stephen Williams. The exhibition opens on November 8, 2025 and continues through January 10, 2026. The public is invited to meet the artist on Saturday, November 8 from 1 – 3 pm.
Stephen Williams’ artwork asks a fundamental question: How do the things that we observe and experience outside of ourselves become infused with emotion and meaning and entry points for our imaginations? The peculiar transformation that takes place during the artmaking process, when words, concepts and experiences move from being “a thing in the world to a world in a thing,” is a source of endless fascination for the artist.
Williams describes the 15 paintings in his OS Projects exhibit as renderings of anonymous interior spaces, analogous to rooms he has never entered or never could. Their images are generated spontaneously and proceed to completion in an improvisational manner. This approach allows the artist to indulge in a kind of freedom and vulnerability as well as an expansiveness that flirts with failure at every moment.
To develop the palette of his paintings, Williams uses only black, blue, yellow, red and white paints. Each has been given a symbolic value. Black represents subjectivity, while blue stands for subjective experience/water. Yellow expresses metaphor/plane of immanence/air, and red is objective experience/fire. White symbolizes objectivity, the opposite of black.
In contrast to the self-contained paintings, Williams’ sculptures function as models. They are physical prompts for things the artist has been thinking about or would like to consider further. Like the forms in his paintings, the sculptures exist in a state of flux. By virtue of being placed into different configurations, they become different things.
What is real? The question has preoccupied Williams throughout his life. The answer, he has discovered through his decades-long art practice, is that reality is “a place where you no longer possess a thing but instead it possesses you.”
About the Artist
Born in Joliet, Illinois, Stephen Williams currently lives and works in Chicago. He holds degrees from the University of Illinois School of Architecture and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Williams has exhibited his work at various art venues, including the Chicago galleries CompassRose, Dart and 65GRAND, and Deborah Sharpe and Charles Cowles galleries in New York. His artwork is in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, JP Morgan Chase Bank, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the American Medical Association.