"I try not to overthink too much when I’m drawing, I don’t want to edit or restrict. A blank piece of paper holds so much potential and my goal is to record and respond. The best ones show up unexpectedly, like being surprised by your own reflection." – Jamie Gray Williams
Jamie Gray Williams is a painter working primarily in large-scale oil and acrylic compositions that confront the viewer with vivid immediacy. Her work is bold, exuberant, and unfiltered, offering a playful disruption of the polished neutrality that often dominates contemporary visual culture. These paintings are loud in their presence, unapologetically expressive, and filled with color, energy, and emotional texture.
Despite their intensity, the works also carry moments of elegance. There is a distinctive sense of movement and fluidity that introduces a dynamic tension within each composition. The figures often feel as if they are on the verge of collapse, suspended in a moment of transformation. This tension gives rise to an atmosphere that is both chaotic and contemplative, filled with emotion, humour, and a certain wistful quality that lingers long after viewing.
At the heart of Williams’s practice is a fascination with the human body and the psychology of physical presence. Her paintings investigate the absurdity and wonder of embodiment, offering a space for viewers to reflect on their own physical existence. The work blends expressive freedom with precise intuition, resulting in a visual language that feels deeply personal yet widely relatable.
Jamie Gray Williams develops her work through a process rooted in automatic and intuitive drawing. Each painting begins with a series of rapid sketches, often created in a single sitting. These drawings emerge instinctively, allowing figures and forms to surface without predetermined structure. They are energetic and impulsive, frequently overflowing the edges of the page, and often hint at the scale and momentum of the larger works to come. From these initial sketches, Williams constructs her paintings through layers of colour that define space and atmosphere. Broad washes establish the groundwork, while detailed marks introduce narrative, emotional nuance, and elements of humour. Her process is fluid and responsive, allowing each composition to evolve through repeated acts of covering, revealing, refining, and adjusting. The tension between collapse and cohesion plays a central role in her practice. Figures stretch and contort, often appearing on the edge of disintegration, yet they retain a surprising balance and clarity. This dynamic reflects her ongoing interest in the psychology of physicality and the complexity of embodied experience. Through her distinctive visual language, Williams explores the tension between structure and spontaneity, vulnerability and strength, inviting viewers to reflect on the strangeness, beauty, and absurdity of existing in a body.
Pisseuse, 2022 – painting
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Bacchanal with Mother, 2022 – painting
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The Search, 2022 – painting
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Panic, 2022 - painting
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