Rachel Eulena Williams
Dream Speak, Apr 24 – Jun 1, 2024

CANADA is excited to present Dream Speak by Rachel Eulena Williams, her second solo show with the gallery. Employing an eclectic list of materials including rope, found fabrics, silk screen prints and scavenged hardware, Williams has created an infectious visual spectacle in CANADA’s main space. The works are vibrantly colorful; full of deep blues, bright orange and soft violets painted in a wide array of techniques that range from thick impasto to thinned out watery soaks and slashing spatters. The show also features new soft sculptural elements that are painted and attached to the surfaces of works.

Williams’ practice is centered on making painting literal. She dismantles the core properties of painting (light and shadow, color, symbol, and the drama of frozen activity) so she can reassemble the constituent parts to create new, bold energy. Sometimes she leaves open holes in the canvases like windows, allowing us to see the wall behind the paintings, integrating the physical space of the gallery into her pieces. By cutting into her surfaces, Williams always creates rather than destroys. She uses her scissors and staple gun to reconfigure her paintings to enliven and push the boundaries of each painting. Incisions interrupt strokes of paint mid-flow, calling attention to the movement of the brush across the surfaces, instilling the marks with a nearly mystical presence. The works in Dream Speak carry a sense of rebellion and embrace simultaneously.

Rope and string function in these paintings like line in drawings. They hold things together, define contours, and carry expressive power: often lifting off the surfaces, propelling the works into the realm of sculpture. Using recognizable materials such as staples, screws, or even a red coat hook, Williams grounds the pieces and places them in today’s world. The formal inventiveness of Dream Speak extends to her new tubular pillow shapes. The hieroglyphic shapes of the pillows are derived from Adinkra symbols, which is a pictographic language of the Bono people from what is now Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. The symbols express concepts and aphorisms in graphically succinct ways. Williams also uses pagan symbols, particularly the Triple Moon, which is a full circle flanked by waxing and waning crescent moons. The moons portray three stages of a woman’s life; the potential of youth that passes into fertile maturity, then the transition into the wisdom and spiritual transcendence of old age.

The works in Dream Speak offer richness and depth that take time to see. Buoyant imagery and a strong graphic sense make a potent first impression: rectangular, round or irregularly shaped, full of abundant forms that evoke flowers and letters. But dig in a little deeper and see the variety that lies just under the surface. Spirals, crescents and various other symbols that hint at hermetic rituals, transformations and incantations that are mysterious, powerful and operate on their own terms.

Rachel Eulena Williams (b. 1991, Miami, FL) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Dundee Arts Center, United Kingdom; Xavier Hufkens, Brussels; The Modern Institute, Glasgow; CANADA, New York; Cooper Cole, Toronto; and Ceysson & Bénétière, Sainte Etienne, among others. Her work was included recently in 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone, at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and is held in the collections of the Pérez Art Museum, Miami and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. She received her BFA from Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York in 2013.