Sandy Williams IV
Sandy Williams IV in his studio
Sandy Williams IV was born in NJ and educated in VA. Their work is about the persistence of memory, the body, and resistance. Williams is interested in working with an audience to actively participate in the creation of future mythologies and to work towards the emancipation of our public spaces. The work deals with the way time can be passed down, transformed, and gathered inside of us, as well as in the things around us, through a propensity towards permanence also called history. Since UVA, Williams has attended many residencies including SOMA (Mexico City), ACRE (Chicago), and The University of Cumbria (UK). His recent exhibitions include Socrates Sculpture Park (New York), New Release (New York), Project Gallery V (New York), 1708 Gallery (Richmond), Guadalajara 90210 (Mexico City). “Ozone Atmosphere”, their two-person show with Monsieur Zohore, recently opened at the Springsteen Gallery in Baltimore.
Can you tell us a bit about the process of making your work?
I think a lot of my work lately has been to participate, and to think about how I can help in the world. So I usually start with an idea, and the materials follow. Sometimes that process results in an object, but often it can be a role, or a record, or about the process itself.
What are you working on at the moment?
Right now I am trying to get funding to make a book and a skywriting project at Chimborazo Park in Richmond, VA.
Sandy Williams IV
Wax Monuments, 2017 - 2020
Wax, Wicks
You had a sculpture commissioned by Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens for the exhibition MONUMENTS NOW made entirely out of wax. Can you talk about your interest in ephemeral materials?
What I love about wax specifically is its fluidity. I like the way it sits so precariously between its solid and liquid forms, on a threshold as small as a candle flame. I think in the conversation about monuments, ephemerality/fluidity is a key element missing. I think public works should participate in time as ephemerally those who place them there.
What are some references you draw upon in your work? Are there any themes in particular that you like to focus on when creating?
Currently my work is focused on the idea of history, where I am trying to understand the divide between historical records and colloquial histories, recover and preserve histories that have been suppressed, redacted, or erased, and add my own hand to history, with others, through collective gestures in the present.
Sandy Williams IV
Wax Monuments, 2017 - 2020
Wax, Wicks
Where are some of your favorite spaces that support contemporary art or design? Now that the art has an online presence has that changed?
The public has remained relatively "open" throughout most of this pandemic, so it is still a very important place for art. However, so many public landscapes hold space for inaccurate histories, and perpetuate the erasure and ongoing fallibility of emancipation and reparations for African Americans, Indigenous people, and their descendants. My work is an effort to bring light to histories that have been denied or erased in official records and popular storytelling, in order to help visualize emancipation through the work of collective action and the creation of new traditions.
Chimborazo Park is celebrated as the former site of the largest Confederate hospital during the US Civil War. This "official" history obfuscates the history of this site as a Freedman Community following the Civil War, when (for a year) it was home to thousands of newly freed people. Many people today are unaware that the park was created through the eviction of thousands of people, and no record of their existence remains at Chimborazo. Many people are not aware that "Richmond" was once the home and capital of the Powatan civilization that pre-existed "Virginia" and the "USA". These are the kinds of spaces that I am currently interested in highlighting and working in, with anyone who is interested in working with me.
Sandy Williams IV
Unattended Baggage Series, 2017 - 2020
Suitcases, Backpacks, Timers, Accelerometers, Electronics and USB Battery Packs
Do you have any shows coming up? Anything else you would like to share
'Ozone Atmosphere', my collaboration with Monsieur Zohore, is and will be open at Springsteen in Baltimore until Feb 27th. I also have a solo show opening at Reynolds Gallery in Richmond in March.
Sandy Williams IV’s work is included in our show “Eternal Flame,” Jan. 1st – Feb. 28th. Visit his website or Instagram (@the_sandyman_can) to see more of his work.