Question:

I’m interested in your use of invented characters in your work, and how these characters embody or critique narratives of targeted oppression that are all too real. What is the advantage of using fantastical characters, as if from a comic book, when the situations you paint are based in reality? And in a greater sense, do you see your role as a painter to be a storyteller, or is your role more of a critic of our troublesome world?

Answer:

I’ve found a role for my work in light of recently documented videos and photographs on social media, that no longer allow us to pretend that there are two sides to such heinous events: the killing or murder of young and old Black men and women by the state or police. Its all to evident that there is a mass extermination underway by the American Political system. And it is very discreet. However, when incarceration of young Black men is in the millions, the continued destruction of our urban neighborhoods, the injustice of a judicial system, the inability of the left to fully recognize what is unfolding, this all motivates the direction of my work. In any form one might think such events were the production of a Hollywood film or serial comics like Superman. This thought gives me a framework from which to think and work.

Peter Williams, The Arrival, 2015, Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

I chose the style in part because its an easily accessible popular media and I have always been interested in the role of the painter as a documentarian, capable of manipulating and developing a coherent narrative. I also think it is the task of the artist to bear witness to the events and stories of the time in which they live. I have also been stimulated by the environment that helps to shape the narrative, I now live in Delaware, which is very white state until you look beneath the surface to find a Black and Hispanic diaspora, among several other cultures such as East Indian and Asian. It was this absence of cultural affectations that led me to pay attention to the politics of my life and and the absence of a negritude.

Peter Williams, Flag Day, 2015, Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

I think this embodiment of an absence, one so palpable as a person of color, the being the Other, or simply put, on being a Black man living in such a white state, has shaped my perspective. Especially since before my ten years here I was in Detroit for seventeen years, which good and bad gave me an insight into the culture of my people. I suppose in some way I am a critic, historian, conflicted character of my own making, which has manifest itself through my painting.

Peter Williams, Political Theatre, 2015, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches