Philemona Williamson

Philemona Williamson (b. 1951, New York, NY) creates dynamic paintings featuring vibrant narratives of children and adolescents intertwined in vibrantly colored and dreamlike scenes. Her work beautifully encapsulates themes of time and memory, revealing fleeting moments that are at once unknown but familiar. Her paintings inspire infinite narratives and invite questions as her subjects seduce the viewer. Williamson explores the tenuous stages between adolescence and adulthood, encapsulating the intersection of innocence and experience at its most piercing and poignant moment. The lush color palette and dreamlike positioning of the figures ensures that their vulnerability - of age, of race, of sexual identity - is seen as strength and not as weakness.

 

Williamson recently was exhibited in Century 100 Years of Black Art at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey as well as her solo exhibition Sweet Dreams at the Manoir de Kerlaouen in France. Williamson was highlighted in an episode of PBS’s “State of the Arts” in 2023 as well as in an episode of the Smithsonian’s “ArtNation” series. In 2019, she held a mid-career retrospective at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey and collaborated with author Marilyn Nelson to create a series of paintings for the children’s book “Lubaya’s Quiet Roar” (Penguin Random House). She has had numerous solo exhibitions such as The Borders of Innocence at the Semiose in Paris and Entangled in Truth at Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco. Williamson has shown in various institutions including The Queens Museum of Art, The Bass Museum in Miami, and Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Pollock-Krasner, National Endowment for the Arts and New York Foundation for the Arts. Williamson’s work is in museum collections including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Montclair Art Museum, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Mint Museum, Smith College Museum of Art, Hampton University Museum and Sheldon Art Museum. Her public works include murals for the MTA Arts in Transit Program. Art & Object named her in “10 Contemporary Black Artists You Should Know More About”. She taught painting at Pratt Institute and Hunter College in New York and served on the advisory board of the Getty Center for Education. Williamson continues to live and work in New Jersey.