"I Engage History to Reclaim It, to Re-vision the Present, and Enable a Newer Future," says Artist

BROOKLYN, N.Y. - Oct. 23, 2018 - PRLog -- The Vanderbilt Republic (VR) invites you to "AMERICA NOW SUITE," a new solo exhibition from Brooklyn-based artist Dale Williams. It is open to the public until 4 November 2018 at Gowanus Loft, a project space dedicated to the conception and production of immersive creative encounters by commission, collaboration, or special arrangement. This will be Mr. Williams' 3rd solo exhibition at the Loft.

This suite of five works is composed of elements designed to retrieve American history and provide, as Williams stated, "a re-mythologizing, a re-visioning of the American past, present, and future." The exhibition's title pays homage to jazz drummer Max Roach's groundbreaking 1960 recording We Insist! – Freedom Now Suite. That work embodied the urgency of the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement. AMERICA NOW SUITE reflects on the communal impulse that supports democracy and equality, an ideal that seems to be eroding in the current political climate of intense partisanship, exclusion, and greed. Williams' work insists that the public sphere impacts our individual imaginations, resulting in highly personal relationships to past history and our current predicament.

The exhibition, like Roach's creation, consists of five sections. It offers a new perspective on American history. There are three major paintings and two series: Awareness Day Portraits, Edward Hicks' Peaceable Kingdom, The Spirit of Manifest Humility, Democratic Vistas—wordscapes, and A Panoramic Fantasia of American History Centered on the Untimely Death of Robert F. Kennedy. The last is a gallery-spanning 11' x 57' mural, which relates the American present to the past, and demonstrates the artist's relationship to history. Williams asserts that he wants his art to create a felt connection to history so it can "aid us in rising above our helpless, struggling selves."

A range of influences impacts Williams' paintings: the moral lessons embodied in the works of 17th century engraver Jacques Lagniet, the phantasms and tragic reportage of Goya's Caprichos and Disasters of War respectively, and the mythologizing of Philip Guston's late paintings. These influences reverberate throughout Williams' social surrealist re-visioning here. A political intent is ever-present: "In responses to my work, I've found the mere depiction of a figure in apparent strife is readily interpreted as being a political commentary. This is especially true in a society split by the chasms of race, gender, and class."

With creative direction, curation, and lighting design by George Del Barrio, this definitive exhibition will be at Gowanus Loft (61 9^th Street Brooklyn 11215) with press previews by appointment during the weekdays, open gallery on Saturday 27 Oct. and 3 Nov. 11a-6p, Sunday 28 Oct. 12-6, and a curated artist talk followed by auction on Sunday 4 Nov., 4-7p. For catalogue information, sales inquiries, or to schedule a gallery visit, please contact george@vanderbiltrepublic.com.
http://vanderbiltrepublic.com/post/177782003260/america-now

ABOUT THE VANDERBILT REPUBLIC
The Vanderbilt Republic (VR, est. 2008) is a creative/production agency formed to catalyze the impact of artistic expression in all modes. Based in Brooklyn, VR sees artists as leaders, activists, and agents for positive change. Through our work with the creative diaspora, the agency offers boutique solutions in transmedia creative production, design & direction, artist representation, and landscape projection design. George Del Barrio is VR's Creative Director × Executive Producer — vanderbiltrepublic.com

ABOUT DALE WILLIAMS
Dale Williams has exhibited in the New York City area over the past 25 years. He is a 2014 recipient of a fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts from the New York Foundation for the Arts. His recent one-person show, "Fear Not To Appear," which highlighted early paintings, drawings, and books from 1980–1997, was held at Gowanus Loft in April 2016. In the summer of 2016 he created a suite of site-specific works featured in a group show, "Eutopia," at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island, NY. His work has been published in BOMB, Ecotone, the Weirderary, Bat City Review, Hayden's Ferry Review and other print and online journals. He studied art at the Cooper Union, Hunter College, and Cal Arts. He is a founding member of The Vanderbilt Republic's artist representation group "The Phenoms" — dalewilliamsart.com