Five-Minute Tours: Sarah Williams at Moody Gallery, Houston

by Glasstire June 22, 2022

Hainsworth Building, 2021, oil on board

Note: the following is part of Glasstire’s series of short videos, Five-Minute Tours, for which commercial galleries, museums, nonprofits and artist-run spaces across the state of Texas send us video walk-throughs of their current exhibitions. This will continue while the coronavirus situation hinders public access to exhibitions. Let’s get your show in front of an audience.

See other Five-Minute Tours here.

Sarah Williams: NOMO at Moody Gallery, Houston. Dates: May 21 – July 2, 2022.

Via Moody Gallery:

“Moody Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Sarah Williams. NOMO marks her third solo exhibition with the gallery and will be on view May 21 – July 2, 2022.

Williams states: ‘In this new body of work, I continue to use my paintings as a way to honor my own regional history which I will always tie to my upbringing in north Missouri.  I now realize that while painting started as a way to deal with the homesickness I felt after leaving my childhood hometown to pursue an MFA degree in an urban setting, it has become a way of creating some strange kind of souvenir of the places I left and the structures and things I knew most intimately.  Even though I eventually took a job back in my home region, I’ve come to understand that in many ways, I’ll never be home again.

This distance does, however, allow me to really see my home and be aware of my new role as a visitor in a way I wouldn’t be able to otherwise.  My pride and passion for the rural Midwest remains as strong as it ever was, but now that comes through in my paintings like a witness’ perspective.  Each time I return home to visit family, I notice more and more store fronts are empty along our Main Street.  The rate of entropy on places that seemed so grand and central to my town is surprising.

I’m aware of how, over time, ways of life shape and define people and the places in which they live.  Making these paintings helps me consider whether disappearance can be meaningful.  And if so, in what way it’s meaningful for my home community and for myself.  I’m considering where I’ll find “home” again and where I can “go back” to.

All places acquire layers of history.  I’m hopeful that the shift I’m observing in my hometown is a cycle that has occurred before in one way or another.  Maybe it looks different to a current resident than a visitor.’

Sarah Williams (b. Kansas City, MO, 1984) currently lives and works in Springfield, MO. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas (2009) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art from William Woods University, Fulton, MO (2006). Her paintings have been included in exhibitions in Texas at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas; Art Museum of South Texas; Tyler Museum of Art; The Grace Museum; and the Galveston Arts Center, as well as at the Nicolaysen Art Museum, WY; Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, MO; and Elmhurst Art Museum, IL. She has held artist residencies at The Studios of Key West, FL (2020); Millay Colony of the Arts, NY (2019); Willapa Bay, WA (2016); Ucross Foundation, WY (2013); and Vermont Studio Center, VT (2010). Williams is an Associate Professor at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO.

Moody Gallery is open Tuesday – Friday 10:30 am – 5:00 pm and Saturday 11:00 am – 5:00 pm. To make an appointment to view the exhibition, please call or email the gallery at 713-526-9911 or [email protected]. Sarah Williams – NOMO can also be viewed online at www.moodygallery.com.”

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