"On His Paintings and Human Rights"
Foreword to the published monogram, Discovery
When I was an undergraduate student studying art at Kutztown
University of Pennsylvania over a decade ago, I was full of energy and
purpose. It wasn’t visions of well attended gallery openings that
drove me, although I must admit I entertained those fantasies along
with my classmates more than once. No, my energy and purpose was
derived from my anxiousness to create works of art that would make a
difference in people’s lives.
As an adolescent I came to understand, and become appalled by, the
violent and often cruel nature of mankind. As I became more skilled
in drawing and painting, I strove to direct my creative energy towards
bringing man’s violent nature into the light. I wanted to evoke
strong feelings so that people would engage in discussions about human
rights. What’s more, I dreamed that my paintings could be a voice for
the countless innocent who were suffering from injustice and cruelty
the world over.
That purpose became blurred as I studied art at the University. All
too often, my fascination with the “isms” in art history became the
focus of my work, and thus the barrier between the meaning of my
pictures and their audiences. The human rights themes in my paintings
became buried under layers of unnecessary impasto color, or made
completely vague in distant, abstract paintings. It is little wonder
that I became completely disillusioned with my own work for almost a
year following my graduation from the University.
When I re-dedicated myself to the figure and narrative works at the
New York Academy of Art in 2002, I didn’t allow myself to embrace the
sort of high minded purposefulness that I had let myself indulge in as
an undergraduate student for fears that the meaning, once again, would
be obscured. It is only recently that I have come to realize that
since I began my professional career in 2004, I have failed to
identify the true purpose of my own paintings. Truly, with no
understanding of my deep concern for humanity, my paintings transmit
the disturbing illusion that I am in favor of indiscriminate
persecution, perversion, and mindless violence.
Let me therefore state with all vigor that I wish for my work to be
received as a call for compassion. In my paintings, I often portray
man at his worst, but it is with a hope that we will all strive to
find compassion in the spirit of mankind.
- ROBERT DALE WILLIAMS, 2009
Foreword to the published monogram, Discovery
When I was an undergraduate student studying art at Kutztown
University of Pennsylvania over a decade ago, I was full of energy and
purpose. It wasn’t visions of well attended gallery openings that
drove me, although I must admit I entertained those fantasies along
with my classmates more than once. No, my energy and purpose was
derived from my anxiousness to create works of art that would make a
difference in people’s lives.
As an adolescent I came to understand, and become appalled by, the
violent and often cruel nature of mankind. As I became more skilled
in drawing and painting, I strove to direct my creative energy towards
bringing man’s violent nature into the light. I wanted to evoke
strong feelings so that people would engage in discussions about human
rights. What’s more, I dreamed that my paintings could be a voice for
the countless innocent who were suffering from injustice and cruelty
the world over.
That purpose became blurred as I studied art at the University. All
too often, my fascination with the “isms” in art history became the
focus of my work, and thus the barrier between the meaning of my
pictures and their audiences. The human rights themes in my paintings
became buried under layers of unnecessary impasto color, or made
completely vague in distant, abstract paintings. It is little wonder
that I became completely disillusioned with my own work for almost a
year following my graduation from the University.
When I re-dedicated myself to the figure and narrative works at the
New York Academy of Art in 2002, I didn’t allow myself to embrace the
sort of high minded purposefulness that I had let myself indulge in as
an undergraduate student for fears that the meaning, once again, would
be obscured. It is only recently that I have come to realize that
since I began my professional career in 2004, I have failed to
identify the true purpose of my own paintings. Truly, with no
understanding of my deep concern for humanity, my paintings transmit
the disturbing illusion that I am in favor of indiscriminate
persecution, perversion, and mindless violence.
Let me therefore state with all vigor that I wish for my work to be
received as a call for compassion. In my paintings, I often portray
man at his worst, but it is with a hope that we will all strive to
find compassion in the spirit of mankind.
- ROBERT DALE WILLIAMS, 2009