Claudia Williams
Claudia Williams creates striking sets of bold graphic drawings, influenced by popular cultural imagery and design of the 70’s and 80’s. TV programmes, shop signs and food logos feature alongside dominant themes of portraiture and music. Claudia’s passion and knowledge for Reggae and R&B music is exceptional and feature across all her artwork, from record labels, musicians, album titles and covers. Many drawings morph self-portraits and family members into musicians, with Bob Marley, Dionne Warwick and Al Green frequently appearing. Writing features throughout the work, Claudia includes her name and the date the work was created, along with song lyrics and names of people and musicians. Often written ideas merge creating intriguing text and titles of work. Claudia is prolific, driven by a powerful need to creatively express herself, producing up to twenty drawings a day, with each drawing set carefully curated into ordered layouts on her studio wall.
Solo Exhibitions Group Exhibitions
Claudia Williams joined ActionSpace in 2013 and quickly established herself as a key resident artist at our Studio Voltaire studio with a clear, definite practice. Between 2014 – 2017 Claudia explored different ways of exhibiting and sharing her practice live with participants and the public during Watch This Space for Wandsworth Arts Fringe. The Studio Voltaire Members Show in 2015 was Claudia’s first exhibition in a contemporary gallery with work selected by Cory Arcangel and Hanne Mugaas. Claudia created a series of drawings for London I am Still In Love With You, a live takeover of Johann Aren’s Pump House Gallery exhibition for Wandsworth Arts Fringe 2019. Visitors experienced Claudia’s unique drawing process and unpredictable visual mashups of song titles fused with objects, favourite foods and London locations in drawings cited throughout Aren’s exhibition. CRACK CRACK CRACK, in 2020, an ActionSpace solo exhibition, presented film shorts and time-lapse to capture Claudia’s unique wall layouts and drawing process. During a month-long residency in ‘The Studio’ at Studio Voltaire in 2021, Claudia developed new work, led workshops and a live drawing event. This residency was part of the public programme accompanying Studio Voltaire’s exhibition by William Scott. Claudia shared her unique practice with participants from One Trust and Lansdowne School during two interactive workshops. Participants were invited to create collage and drawing work alongside and in response to Claudia’s practice. On the final residency day the public viewed Claudia’s drawing process in action as she completed an extensive three wall drawing installation. Alongside the residency drawings, Claudia presented a series of her ‘greatest hits’ drawings of musicians playing the piano including Elton John, Barry White and Aretha Franklin.Exhibitions
Live Art Events
Residencies
Biography
