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Selected Solo Exhibitions

‘Everything Must Go’

‘Everything must go’

In 2003 Gary James Williams’ studio was temporarily converted into a gallery space during the Bankley Studios open event. Williams’ studio became the site for a temporary installation work ‘Everthing Must Go’ that was solely engaged with the value systems in the process of the creation of art.

‘Everything must go’

Bankley Studios: Open Studios Event

Bankley Studios,

Manchester, UK. 2003

‘Redefining History’

‘Redefining History’ was realised and exhibited during an artist residency at the Stoke on Trent ‘A’ Level College. The residency was focused on the development of combined real-time and prerecorded video image and surveillance technologies in the creation of new work and the shifting arena of viewing.

‘Redefining History’

artist in residence:

Stoke on Trent ‘A’ Level College,

Stoke on Trent, UK.2001

‘new horizons’

‘new horizons’ is a gallery specific installation by Gary James Williams for Bankley Gallery in Manchester. A 5.25 meter slide projection taken by the artist’s father of the artist when he was 10 years old, visiting New York with the incoming prospect of possible emigration.

In this work Williams responds to the historical thread and the advent of new social, economic, cultural and ecological structures, ways of life that are presented and anticipated in the context of entering a brave new and alien world.

Adjacent to the projected photographic image at the rear of the gallery space, a mixed media installation and large interpretation of his father’s photograph on streched silk explore the ideas of imperfection, the manufactured and the artificial propose a turning point of idealized expectation as what the artist describes as ‘turning the world upside down and putting it back together again’.

As signifiers become the signified in ‘new horizons’, seemingly pluralist notions of modernity strategically depart from illusive myths and their representation to the seduction of pure visual spectacle, expectation and uncertainty.

‘new horizons’

Bankley Gallery,

Manchester, UK. 2001

‘Everthing & More’

MAFA Show

Grosvenor Building,

Manchester Metropolitan University,

Manchester, UK. 1999

‘of what had become a former self’

‘of what had become a former self’ a mixed media installation, incorporating sculpture, photography and the moving image.

This installation was realised from the remains and the video documentation of the performance of the same name that explores terms and contexts of identity in which Williams pours molten wax from height onto the plinth presenting an arrangement of cut flowers. As the performance begins and develops, the flowers are coated and soak up the molten wax in a process of preservation that retains their natural beauty. The dripped layers of molten wax that pour over the plinth accumulate, leaving a bas relief of poetic and metaphorical physicality.

This installation was commissioned by VisionFest ’94 for the Cornwallis Building Liverpool.

‘of what had become a former self’

Visionfest 94

Cornwallis Building,

Liverpool, UK. 1994

‘The Gift’

‘The Gift’ was commissioned by VisionFest ’93 as a site specific installation work for the  Dean Walters Building, Liverpool John Moores University.  

The Dean Walters Building is situated adjacent to the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. ‘The Gift’ intentionally engages with the building’s rotunda architecture, its locality and the potential thematic dialogue that was inspired by it.

Conceived as an open invitation to deliberate the universal uncertain worlds of love and loss, and the certitude of need and desire, this site specific installation explores and seemingly encapsulates a speculative omnipresence of expectation and acceptance. This is realised through the artist’s formal placement of objects that in time will retain their physical integrity or that will naturally metamorphose or become contaminated as in the continuity of the persistent flow of recycled water stemming from an engineered fountain.

‘The Gift’

Visonfest ’93

Liverpool John Moores University,

Dean Walters Building,

Liverpool, UK. 1993

‘Essential Structures’

‘Essential Structures’ was a solo exhibtion of Gary James Williams’ recent works, curated by Gary Perkins at Mass Gallery, Liverpool in 1992.

‘Essential Structures’

Mass Gallery,

Liverpool, UK. 1992

©️ Gary James Williams