Sarah Williams

The Middle

Lawrence Art Center
January 12 – February 24, 2024

In this new body of work, Sarah Williams continues to use her paintings as a way to honor her regional history, which she will always tie to her upbringing in northern Missouri.  She now realizes that these paintings started as a way to deal with the homesickness she felt after leaving her childhood hometown to pursue an MFA degree in an urban setting. These paintings have created a type of strange souvenir of the places she has left and the structures and things she knew most intimately. Even though she eventually took a job in her home region, she has come to understand that she’ll never be home again in many ways.

Sarah Williams was raised in Brookfield, Missouri, a rural Midwestern town. These roots have influenced her representations of small towns and vernacular architecture. Her intimate, tightly-painted works often portray buildings such as gas stations, bungalows and the environments surrounding these structures. These tableaux of American life, while unremarkable in themselves, are elevated by Williams’ adept handling of light and mood. Through her approach, the everyday becomes a fascinating enigma. After earning a BFA from William Woods University in Missouri, Williams completed her MFA in Drawing and Painting at the University of North Texas in 2009.  She now serves as Professor of Painting at Missouri State University in Springfield.

Williams’s artwork has been shown in institutions throughout the United States, including solo exhibitions at Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming; the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, Texas; Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, Texas; and the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, St. Joseph, Missouri. Her work is included in numerous institutional collections including the Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas; Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, Texas; Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas; Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond, Washington; Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming; Old Jail Art Center, Albany, Texas; University of North Texas, Denton, Texas; and William Woods University, Fulton, Missouri.

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