“‘It’s About Love’ honors Franklin’s dedication to the folk and craft traditions of his childhood and a singular commitment to making work exclusively for himself,” said exhibition curator Kate Kraczon, director of exhibitions for the Brown Arts Institute and chief curator of the Bell. “His daily studio practice marks moments of pleasure, pain and quotidian family life, while eschewing external pressure from institutional and market trends.”
Kraczon first connected with Williams through Los Angeles-based art dealer Sam Parker. During a visit to Williams’ home studio, Kraczon’s enthusiasm for his art easily convinced the artist that an exhibition at Brown would be a good fit, Williams said.
To select the works for the exhibition, Williams and Kraczon sorted through and discussed more than a hundred pieces, many of which were in the Bay Area home that Williams shares with his wife, Carol. Its name, “It’s About Love,” came about “because he said that phrase so many times when I’ve asked him questions about his works,” Kraczon said.
His life, Williams said, has been full of moments of both joy and devastation, much of which is captured in his art. One of his struggles included learning how to read as an adult. Shortly after marrying Carol, at age 21, he started that process, he said, with her help and encouragement.
“Carol and I have been together for 63 years now, so I know about love,” Williams said. “I know it requires more work than anything else in the world, but the rewards are great.”
Carol’s body appears as a consistent theme in his work and in the exhibition.
“Carol inspires much of his figuration and nearly all of the femme-reading bodies, in paintings such as ‘Twins (Part 1&2)’ and ‘Standing Figure,’” Kraczon said. “These erotically charged objects are devotional as they entwine love and sexuality into vividly hued human forms and bodily organs to become portraits of intimacy and marriage as well as moments of mourning.”
Death is another prevalent theme. Several works in the exhibition mark intense periods of pain, such as the loss of an infant daughter in “Baby Girl #2” and “Baby Girl #4,” the passing of Williams’ father in “Last Gate,” and the looming death of his mother in “Cutting Apron Strings.”
Kraczon noted that Williams’ emotionally charged artwork retains a vibrant, even eccentric, use of color, which is shaped by his color-vision deficiency.
Williams, who was given his own studio as a boy, turned to art as a means of expression at a young age. Though he struggled in school with a yet-to-be diagnosed reading disability, his parents recognized his artistic brilliance and encouraged him to spend hours drawing.
He taught art for many years at the San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of the Arts, and said it is meaningful that his work is being shown at an educational institution like Brown, where many students and members of the public can view it, as opposed to a more exclusive commercial gallery.
Kraczon said she hopes the exhibition will inspire Brown’s many student-artists.
“I think it’s important for students to be exposed to artistic practices that are not market-driven or easily located within a specific art movement,” she said.
What Williams loves most about interacting with students, he said, is having conversations about life.
“I enjoyed teaching,” Williams said. “We never even talked that much about art. We talked about how to conduct your life in a poetic and spiritual way in a corrupt world that is full of chaos and has always been a mess.”
Although he intends to keep creating for quite some time, the lifelong artist said he can already envision his last work.
“I told my children that when I think I’m getting close to completing my journey, I’m going to have them trace my body,” Williams said. “And they can write a thousand notes around my body and in my body to make my final piece of art.”
The Bell Gallery, 64 College St., Providence, R.I., is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; on Thursdays and Fridays, it is open until 8 p.m. Admission is free.
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