Kiersten N Williams: Playing House

Contact: Mary Pat Pead
(813) 784-0350 or peamp@rhodes.edu

For Immediate Release:

Mary Pat Pead and Gallery #2571 Broad are delighted to announce the solo exhibition: Kiersten N. Williams: Playing House.

Playing House will take place for one night only on Friday, April 18, 2008 from 6-9 p.m. The reception will be held in the gallery during the exhibit.

The show is located at 2571 Broad Avenue.

Playing House will feature new paintings that continue Williams’ themes of self-realization while incorporating fresh inspirations discovered during her recent residency in the Virgin Islands. Her collages radiate with vibrant, daring colors and generate an energetic presence in whatever environment they inhabit. Phrases and numbers rendered in a graffiti-manner are juxtaposed with abstract, symbolic and figurative imagery to evoke feelings related to Williams’ childhood experience. In her statement for the exhibition the artist writes “Home is the beginning, yet also the rest of our lives. Playing House is a personal testimony, an expression of inner growth and a celebration of fortitude. The pieces reflect the struggles and pleasures of my childhood: isolation, poverty, remorse, joy, fear, love. These prevailing emotions enable others to connect with the work and reminisce about their own upbringings.”

Kiersten N. Williams was born in Memphis in 1981. She attended Overton High School where she actively pursued art in its advanced program. She received a Business Management degree from University of Memphis in 2004. After a brief hiatus from practicing art while earning the business degree, Williams reclaimed her passion for creating and has been dedicated to art-making ever since. For the month of March (2008), she performed a residency in St. Croix (Virgin Islands) alongside fellow artist Anthony D. Lee. Her residency included a solo show titled Beautiful Decay at the Caribbean Museum of the Arts. She is represented by the Hearne Fine Art Gallery in Little Rock, AR, where her work is currently displayed in the group show Daughters of Diaspora. She has been included in group exhibitions at Delta Axis at Marshall Arts, Memphis College of Art’s On the Street Gallery, and the Tunica Museum (Tunica, MS). She has recently been featured by the Memphis-based online magazine Culture Grits. Williams works and resides in her birthplace of Memphis.

This exhibition is sponsored by the Center for Outreach in the Development in the Arts at Rhodes College.

If you should have any questions please contact Mary Pat Pead at 813-784-0350 or peamp@rhodes.edu

JPG information: “Kiers_image” is a detail of the artist’s spray painted and acrylic mural in her studio. The image is courtesy of Kiersten N. Williams, Memphis, TN.