Look Who it Was Random video

PPOW GALLERY - Robert F Williams

1,053 views · Published 15 February 2014 · 6:24 · Indexed 12 November 2026

Channel: NYC GALLERY OPENINGS · 2014 · Entertainment

Watch on YouTube

P.P.O.W is pleased to present Robin F. Williams' second solo exhibition 
at the gallery entitled Sons of the Pioneers.

Through a series of paintings Williams challenges the roles of American 
masculinity and traditional portraiture by replacing the idyllic female, or 
odalisque, with romanticized scenes of men in various states of idleness. 
The narratives depicted circle around an inverted version of manifest 
destiny wherein men abandon their conquests and choose stillness, 
allowing the next frontier to be an inward quest. Through various 
painting techniques and a neon palette, Williams drapes each figure 
with mixed identities that mask traditional signifiers of purpose and 
patriarchy in order to construct a new and sympathetic masculine 
mythology.

Williams presents each portrait from her position as the "other," using 
the tondo as a strategy to reinforce the voyeuristic, peeping nature of 
the artist's gaze. In the works Hunter, Astronaut, Onlooker and Sun Hat 
Sunset, she adorns each male with ornamental hats and accessories, 
allowing them to reflect sensibilities not typically associated with the 
male portrait. In these works, Williams repeats patterns and foliage so to 
weave her subjects together while consciously shifting her treatment of 
the paint to simultaneously create a sense of individualism for each 
character.  Using external props, some self made and others her own 
clothing, Williams is able to further reflect the subject's sense of a shared 
identity, complicating the concept of otherness. 

Sons of the Pioneers continues Williams' exploration of psychological 
portraiture and marks a departure from her depiction of children, which 
was the focus of her previous exhibitions. It is evident in these works that 
Williams' painting techniques have continued to develop alongside her 
expanded subject matter. Within these works Williams draws 
resemblance from the innovative mark making of post-impressionist 
Georges-Pierre Seurat, to the paintings of Mary Cassat that re-cast the 
role of women over a century ago, to the psychedelic pallet of nineties 
graphic designer Lisa Frank.

Robin F. Williams was born in Ohio in 1984 and currently lives and works 
in Brooklyn. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of 
Design.  She has been included in numerous exhibition in New York and 
California. Williams has been honored as the Josephine Mercy Heathcote 
Fellow at The MacDowell Colony and the 2010 Brooklyn Academy 
"Playbill Artist."

Music by:
Chill Carrier - A New Day

More from this channel