Philemona Williamson: Disproportionate Upheavals

1 November - 20 December 2025

Overview

Opening Reception

Saturday, November 1, 2025

4:00 - 6:00 PM

1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco, CA

Artist Walkthrough

5:00 PM

Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, is pleased to present Disproportionate Upheavals, the gallery’s second solo exhibition with narrative painter Philemona Williamson. The opening reception is Saturday, November 1, from 4:00-6:00 PM. During the reception, there will be a walkthrough with the artist at 5:00 PM. The exhibition remains on view through December 20, 2025.

Philemona Williamson, based in New Jersey, is known for her figurative paintings. Williamson’s narratives of childhood and adolescence create a space of fable and memory investigating the dissonance, possibility, and liminal state of transition. With a career spanning over forty years, she creates an iconography both personal and universal.

Figures are dynamic, passionate, volatile, familiar, and strange—moving through moments of uncertainty and landscapes beyond control. Toys and objects act as repositories of emotion and memory. Poetic and open-ended, the paintings invite viewers to tap into their own stories of change, chaos, and possibility.

Disproportionate Upheavals includes eight paintings created between 2024 and 2025, along with a significant piece from 2016.