Continuing through December 20, 2025
Several hours before the opening reception of Philemona Williamson’s exhibition of eight mid-sized paintings titled “Disproportionate Upheavals,” I found myself alone with them in the quiet of the gallery. It felt as though I had stumbled into a crowded, noisy reception: the suite of paintings (plus one older piece) are that rich in depictions of human goings-on. They are a raucous celebration of being alive, even in the hushed silence of the exhibition space.
These colorful, mid-sized paintings bear similarities to that of Bay Area artist John Bankston, also known for fanciful narrative scenes. The bunny-masked child in Williamson’s “Praying for Thunder” could have been borrowed from Bankston’s own menagerie. But Williamson has different sources for her stories than Bankston does, and it matters.
Williamson’s slightly crowded, sometimes claustrophobic settings depict Black children and adolescents in ambiguous social situations. None of them smile; all are portrayed in various states of distress, staring out at us with wistful or angst-filled expressions.
Williamson’s works are constructed with a supreme confidence and clear-eyed intention that allows us to read between the lines of those expressions to imagine the experience and mentality that lies behind them. These are complex scenarios. Never overly precise, Williamson favors depth and ambiguity over narrative certainty. Anything but saccharine, they are rich with suggestions of discomfiture. Rendered in a palette of pale browns, blues and an occasional gentle green, they have the effect of awakening us from a powerful but elusive dream, midway between nostalgia and nightmare.
Two works imply the trauma of early sexual awakenings. In “Uneven Terrain” a boy runs past a girl seated on a log arranging her hair. He stares behind with an expression mixing guilt and confusion, as though some interaction had taken place that he neither understands nor was prepared for. In a trampling of innocence, he steps on a flower. In “Dwelling in Discord,” a younger boy hugs a slightly older girl from behind, her short skirt hiked up to expose her naked legs as the two sit on a log.
Williamson readily shares that the works are semi-autobiographical. Each is a meditation on the difficulties of childhood, whether it’s realizing one’s identity or meeting the expectations of parents and the larger community. Playing cards, male and female dolls, a toy truck, rubber balls and other toys scattered about the floor are frequent motifs, available for the children to try on identities or behaviors and then, when ready, to cast them aside and move on. In “Inescapable Tangle,” the bodies of three girls intertwine to suggest they could be close friends or aspects of a single individual. As we experience close relations with peers our feelings are often fraught, impacting the way we interact with others for the rest of our lives. One girl’s hair hangs straight down as her head is held at an extreme angle, emphasizing the gravity of the situation.
In “On the First” a young girl’s horizontal figure fills the space, with a slight but mischievous smile on her lips. Nothing in the rendering is meant to be easy or simple, as limbs change color, don’t quite match up, and yet the depiction is unequivocally true and right. The colors — mostly yellow and green with passages of red in the girl’s lower body and the discarded banana skins beneath her — are subdued, but still augment the subject’s courageous dance against the unseen forces trying to pull her down.
The ninth work in the exhibition, “A Crooked Line” was executed ten years ago, and is larger than the other works. The immediate effect of this work’s presence is to break up the coherence of the exhibition. It’s also much more mythopoetic than the new works, showing adult women dancing in feathered outfits with dashes of different colors like pink and beige. A young girl staring over her shoulder from the left edge of the canvas anticipates the newer pieces.
