Exhibition at Brown’s Bell Gallery celebrates the vibrant, textured artwork of Franklin Williams

“It’s About Love” honors Franklin’s dedication to the folk and craft traditions of his youth and a special dedication to creating works exclusively for himself,” said exhibition curator Kate Kraczon, exhibition director of the Brown Arts Institute and chief curator of the Bell . “His daily studio practice marks moments of pleasure, pain and everyday family life, while eschewing external pressures from institutional and market trends.”

Kraczon first came into contact 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 and discussed more than a hundred pieces, many of which were located in the Bay Area home Williams shares with his wife Carol. The name, “It’s About Love,” came about “because he said that phrase so many times when I asked him questions about his works,” Kraczon said.

His life, Williams said, was full of moments of both joy and devastation, much of which is captured in his art. One of his struggles was learning to read as an adult. Shortly after he married Carol, at age 21, he began that process, he said, with her help and encouragement.

“Carol and I have been together for 63 years now, so I know what love is,” Williams said. “I know it takes more work than anything 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 almost all of women’s reading bodies, in paintings like ‘Twins (Part 1&2)’ and ‘Standing Figure,’” Kraczon said. “These erotically charged objects are devotional because they weave love and sexuality into vibrantly colored human forms and bodily organs to become portraits of intimacy and marriage, as well as moments of mourning.”

Death is another common theme. Several works in the exhibition mark intense periods of pain, such as the loss of a daughter in ‘Baby Girl #2’ and ‘Baby Girl #4′, the death of Williams’ father in ‘Last Gate’ and the impending death. from his mother in ‘Cutting Apron Strings’.

Kraczon noted that Williams’s emotionally charged artwork maintains a vibrant, even eccentric use of color, which is shaped by his color vision deficit.

Williams, who had his own studio as a boy, turned to art as a means of expression at an early age. Although he struggled in school with a yet-to-be-diagnosed reading disorder, his parents recognized his artistic genius 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 displayed 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 exhibit will inspire Brown’s many student artists.

“I think it is important for students to be exposed to artistic practices that are not market-driven or easily found within a specific art movement,” she says.

What Williams enjoys most about interacting with students, he says, is conversations about life.

“I enjoyed teaching,” Williams said. “We’ve never talked so much about art. We talked about how to live 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 plans to continue creating for quite some time, the lifelong artist says he can already imagine his final work.

“I told my kids that when I think I’m close to completing my journey, I’ll let them trace my body,” Williams said. “And they can write a thousand notes around my body and inside my body to create my final work of art.”

The Bell Gallery, 64 College St., Providence, RI, is open to the public daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; open until 8 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays. Admission is free.