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Exhibition

Aubrey Williams: Elemental Force

22 May-26 Jul 2025
PV 21 May 2025, 6-8.30pm

October Gallery
London WC1N 3AL
Aubrey Williams, Quartet No 5, opus 92 (Shostakovich series), 1981, Oil on canvas, 132 x 208 cm. Credit: © Estate of Aubrey Williams. Courtesy the Estate of Aubrey Williams and October Gallery, London.

Overview

October Gallery presents a solo exhibition by Aubrey Williams, comprising a selection of significant paintings, spanning the decades between the 1960s and 1980s. This exhibition explores Williams’ painterly techniques, investigating his highly individual approach. His intense works draw from a broad range of influential artists, particularly Arshile Gorky, one of the precursors of Abstract Expressionism and Wifredo Lam, who references African motifs and Afro-Caribbean culture; as well as the abstracted, energetic excitement of the New York School.

Williams’ work can be viewed as a uniquely evolved expression of abstraction and a powerful contribution to post-war art. In displaying his intuitive grasp of the possibilities open to abstraction, these striking works deploy an entirely original use of colour. The range of paintings underline the breadth of Williams’ interests: ecology, cosmology, music and pre-colonial civilisations.

As the art critic and curator, Mel Gooding noted, ‘These effects of natural dynamics persist in Williams’ work in such a way as to become a characteristic expressive trope that is so utterly personal as to be signature.’

Williams' distinctive contribution to 20th century British art is now recognised by his increasing prominence in significant international exhibitions. Tate Britain dedicated a room to works by this master of abstraction in their rehang of meaningful examples of British art in 2023 – 2024. Following The Earth Will Open Its Mouth, at the Museum Sztuki in Lodz, Poland, placing Williams’ canvases as a revelatory counterweight to Erna Rosenstein’s surrealist, impressionist art, a major exhibition, Feeling Color: Aubrey Williams and Frank Bowling has recently opened at The Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, in the United States. 

Last year, Paul Mellon Centre published Aubrey Williams: Art, Histories, Futures, the first major monograph on pioneering modernist Aubrey Williams.

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Artists

Aubrey Williams

Guyanese, 1926-1990

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