Germain, Paris
Justin Williams
Arcana Part II
Galerie L'InlassableArcana part II is Justin Williams first solo exhibition in France. This recent body of works brings together painting and ceramics to portray the second conclusion of Arcana - shown in Melbourne, Australia in 2017. Using the iconography of the tarot Marcell, as a vehicle to bring Justin's own obsession with, local folk law, cults, and outsiders through a major arcana tarot reading. Justin Williams creates work that is quietly mystical. It reaches us from a place of subversive beauty, where urban legends and local stories contain strange and wonderful characters. It is these characters that interest and inform a new body of sculptures and paintings, which delve into the mysteries of the mountain where Williams lives and works. Raw and honest, Williams delves into the internal struggle of the duality between light and dark, beauty and hostility, legends and truth; these works are both finished, yet unfinished, as are the people and stories that inform them. His paintings reveal landscapes shimmering in a space between public and hidden worlds; his sculptures speak of characters living within the confines of an almost smothering forest. Although Justin Williams’ works may appear to be a product of an active imagination, in recent years Williams has been living and working in Victoria’s picturesque Dandenong Ranges in Australia, where he has found unique tales and characters that prove to be more curious than fiction. From his idyllic studio in the mountains, he investigates his relatively isolated surroundings through ceramic and painted works. From the beauty found in nature to local folklore, including tales of a lone black panther that wanders the bush, to the often-strange inhabitants of the quiet mountain towns, Williams produces work that reflects on and celebrates the character of the place he lives.