PAaDa… what is it?

PAaDa is the acronym for Painting As a Democratic act. This tour refers to the project artist Kathy Williams pursues as she considers if abstract painting and sculpture effectively communicate with the public. Williams will use each space to create a series of painted marks / three dimensional paintings that exist in physical space. The complete process is a performace, is public and highlights the decison making process we all can make at different times and in different places. Williams can only make and assemble the painted reactions in specific places, times and influence of other people. We can never make the same work twice as we can never completely replicate any experience we live with.

PAaDa is a project that invites the public to visit, take their own photographs of the painted marks and sculpture, upload them and use as the final documentation. Everyones viewpoint will be unique and the works legacy will only be seen via the eyes of the people who saw it during its lifespan ( the duration of occupancy).

Williams is very interested in playing with opposites…inside and outside, internal / external, artist / not artist and knowledge / no knowledge. For these reasons, the public will be invited to add their own painted abstract shapes on the external window ….a means of developing a universal symbolic language, of fusing expert knowledge with the not, and so democracising the whole process and understanding of what abstract art can be.

The development of this project in particular seeks to expand the discussion of contemporary abstract art with local communities. A direct experience of the thought processes involved will serve to expand understanding and accessibility. The temporal nature of the site specific installation gives weight to the importance of documentation taken by the public, serving to give ownership to that public, and a growing understanding, an effective visual communication from the artists’ artwork.

Nomad**

The tour explores the idea of artist as nomad. Williams is interested in the idea of being able to create work in different places at different times, rather than the model of artist-creator-in-studio. Experience has shown nthat her work has a significant freedom when she is able to work on site, responding to the makeup of place, time and interactions of others. She is aware of the public vulnerability the work posses, as each piece does not come with a guarantee that it will work out. Ideas from the start of each project are conceived as thoughts, but as the pieces are made, the painting begun, the sculptures installed, it is only when Williams can see her thoughts that the real process of visual problem solving begins. She employs a range of problem-solving skills to then find a satisfactory visual answer to what she has created, as the artist always has to problem solve, work with what they have to allow it to reach the most satisfying end point it can reach. Then move onto the next piece.

The work of Kathy Williams has always had the fluid ability to reflect statements of her life. Different times and places, emotions and ideas, friends and family…every decision we make affects each moment we have…we can go down wrong paths, amazing paths. The moment is always temporary.