Rose L. Williams
Bio
My name is Rose L. Williams and I define myself as an Artist. I have suffered from severe endometriosis from the age of 12. I was born and raised in the lower Laurentian Mountains of Quebec (dans la Ville de Lorraine), to anglophone parents of mixed race. (Mais oui, je suis bilingue.) I grew up with a sense of belonging to the Caribbean culture and community of Montreal and Trinidad & Tobago. I was blessed to have creative artists in my family on both sides and felt encouraged in my own artistic ambitions. I studied creative arts, drama and ceramics at Champlain College located in Bishop's University, Sherbrooke Quebec. Then I followed my recently re-married mother to BC and earned my diploma in painting and printmaking from the University of the Fraser Valley in Chilliwack. I spent years freelancing my skills in graphic arts, design, editing, computer graphics and painting, as well as exhibiting in group shows. I returned to school as a mature single parent and earned my certification as an expressive arts therapist from Langara College in 2008. This past spring I was honoured to be accepted into the third year of the Bachelor of Visual Arts program at Emily Carr University, which I will begin, with excitement, in Sept 2013.
My name is Rose L. Williams and I define myself as an Artist. I have suffered from severe endometriosis from the age of 12. I was born and raised in the lower Laurentian Mountains of Quebec (dans la Ville de Lorraine), to anglophone parents of mixed race. (Mais oui, je suis bilingue.) I grew up with a sense of belonging to the Caribbean culture and community of Montreal and Trinidad & Tobago. I was blessed to have creative artists in my family on both sides and felt encouraged in my own artistic ambitions. I studied creative arts, drama and ceramics at Champlain College located in Bishop's University, Sherbrooke Quebec. Then I followed my recently re-married mother to BC and earned my diploma in painting and printmaking from the University of the Fraser Valley in Chilliwack. I spent years freelancing my skills in graphic arts, design, editing, computer graphics and painting, as well as exhibiting in group shows. I returned to school as a mature single parent and earned my certification as an expressive arts therapist from Langara College in 2008. This past spring I was honoured to be accepted into the third year of the Bachelor of Visual Arts program at Emily Carr University, which I will begin, with excitement, in Sept 2013.
What I know
22" x 15"
Watercolour and gouache painting on paper
$300.00
22" x 15"
Watercolour and gouache painting on paper
$300.00
Artist Statement
Water is the beginning and water is the end. Water is Life.
It took time for me to notice or realize that I had included water, in some form or other, in the vast majority of my paintings and drawings over a period of more than twenty years. My images had been unconsciously suffused with water and when I became aware of it, I dove even deeper into exploring it as the subject of my work. I tried to allow myself to open up to the symbolism and messages that the intuitive images of water held for me.
Water is the beginning and water is the end. Water is Life.
It took time for me to notice or realize that I had included water, in some form or other, in the vast majority of my paintings and drawings over a period of more than twenty years. My images had been unconsciously suffused with water and when I became aware of it, I dove even deeper into exploring it as the subject of my work. I tried to allow myself to open up to the symbolism and messages that the intuitive images of water held for me.
"Watching my life pass like the water rushing past in a fast running stream
All the minutes and hours held tight and holding still waiting, waiting for my real life to begin
Held tight, still waiting, holding still as the moments of my life pour past and around me,
Like a buoy held fast to its mooring as the tide tugs and pulls as it flows
The internal scars leaving a map of hurt going nowhere
Like tributaries of a river flowing towards and seeking an ocean that no longer exists."
All the minutes and hours held tight and holding still waiting, waiting for my real life to begin
Held tight, still waiting, holding still as the moments of my life pour past and around me,
Like a buoy held fast to its mooring as the tide tugs and pulls as it flows
The internal scars leaving a map of hurt going nowhere
Like tributaries of a river flowing towards and seeking an ocean that no longer exists."
I float like a cork when I am in the water....trusting completely that the water supports and removes the weight from me, allowing me to relax and let go. In that state I feel connected to every body of water on the planet, the water in my own body, the water in all beings.
The mermaid is a symbol, for me, of a being that exists between worlds. Between lives, places, loves and species always floating there in that non-space, that gap between what is known and what is not. She is often, like myself, defined by others more by what she is not, than what she is.
In this diptych, the mermaid pulls a woman deeper under the ocean as the woman holds onto a log. Above is glimpsed a view of the terrestrial environment the floating woman belongs to, for a moment she too finds herself poised between the world of the known and the mysteriously deep unknown.
The mermaid is a symbol, for me, of a being that exists between worlds. Between lives, places, loves and species always floating there in that non-space, that gap between what is known and what is not. She is often, like myself, defined by others more by what she is not, than what she is.
In this diptych, the mermaid pulls a woman deeper under the ocean as the woman holds onto a log. Above is glimpsed a view of the terrestrial environment the floating woman belongs to, for a moment she too finds herself poised between the world of the known and the mysteriously deep unknown.
Mermaid Pulling Her Deeper
22" x 30"
Watercolour and gouache painting on paper
$1,100.00
22" x 30"
Watercolour and gouache painting on paper
$1,100.00
Photographs by Rachel Warick
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