Imi Williams
Degree: MA Painting
University: Royal College of Art
Graduation Year: 2024
New Blood Art Commentary
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.
Artist Statement
My practice is dedicated to colour interplay and a process of layering. The painted surface goes through many transitions before forming the final piece, with each recorded moment being vital to the process, visible or not.
I am mesmerised by how painted colours respond to one another when placed next to or on top of each other in varying opacities, how they melt together or sit in contrast. I aim for the works to have an element of playfulness which is why I choose vivid colours and use thick, sweeping brushstrokes. Despite this, there is also a delicacy to the way I work and the paintings are meditative as they are playful. Colour is what seduces the eye and allows one to sink into the painted space, where it slowly reveals itself to the viewer.
I paint in thin veils to maintain a translucency in the layers, and 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 and overlapping. My gestures are slow and considered but simultaneously intuitive and often sporadic. 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
Group Exhibitions
(2025) In Flux, Gate 45, Dubai
(2025) Songs of Innocence and Experience, Galleria Brescia, Brescia, Italy
(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