Degree: MA Painting
University: Royal College of Art
Graduation Year: 2024
Cascade and recess in these paintings equalise into stillness and movement. In a choreography of contrast, colours will pull against the magnetic black or blue swathes into new intensity. Lush deeper tones with vivid bright ones. These works by Imogen Williams are aerial and gymnastic, plush and undulating. They bring to mind the soft fluidity of Georgia O’Keeffe’s organic abstractions.
It’s the versatility of the paint medium that intrigues the artist, that she uses to draw out the tension between control and spontaneity. With colour she creates a glow, also giving the sense of a living canvas. There’s a sense of being compelled, mesmerised: the fascination that brings you in closer to look at nature or at art. These paintings are a locus: for the real feeling of imagined realms.
My practice is dedicated to colour interplay and the medium of oil paint, used as vehicles to paint imagined spaces consisting of multiple layers which respond to and build upon one another. The painted surface goes through many transitions before forming the final piece, with each recorded moment being vital to the process.
I apply paint in thin veils, playing with varying opacities so that colours can merge through glazing as well as blending. My process involves concealing and revealing; I often wipe away applied paint to uncover prior brush marks, creating a dialogue between past and present states. The concealed and obscured marks exist beneath the surface like memories.
Soft and subtle gestures are present amongst bolder and more pronounced ones, tracing across the surface of the canvas and coalescing into forms that interact and overlap. My paint application reflects the tension between the slow consideration and spontaneity of the painting experience. The canvas is a site of exploration, offering a glimpse into both my subconscious thoughts and intentional actions. While elements including the order of colour application may be planned, the unexpected moments resulting from the organic process are what excite me.
(2023) Annihilation, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, South Kensington, London
(2023) If You're Lost This Is Where You Can Be Found, Safehouse 2, Peckham, London