Hunt Street, oil on board, 18 x 30 inches
Walking into Sarah Williams’ show “Pretty Rural” at Andrea Schwartz in San Francisco, viewers are teleported across the country by her newest paintings. Specifically, they are transported into a dark winter evening complete with Christmas lights in Brookfield, Missouri, where Williams grew up. The double entendre is immediately clear. “Pretty Rural” is both extremely rural and exquisitely gorgeous. Williams masterfully documents scenes of houses and yards in small-town Middle America with a painterly romanticism and a hefty dose of reality.
West Burnham Street, oil on board, 18 x 24 inches
These small-to-medium-sized night-time oil paintings range from portraits of houses (West Burnham Street) to block scenes (South Meade Street) to imagined houses behind walls of lights (West Pettijohn Street). The atmosphere is meticulously captured, a nod to the agrarian culture’s focus on the weather and even the color of twilight. The winter trees lack leaves and the paintings lack people, but the debris scattered across yards, still-open screen doors, and the combination of house and street lights suggest a very much alive and vibrant community–though not necessarily the one from It’s a Wonderful Life.
East Polk Street, oil on board, 12 x 24 inches
West Pettijohn Street, oil on board, 12 x 24 inches
They say you can’t go home again, so what does it mean when Williams does exactly that in her newest body of work? What does going home look like when, even though your family never left, you haven’t lived in a place in over twenty years?
Williams explains that Brookfield is, to her, still a family member, and “you don’t speak badly about family members.” The love for her hometown is evident in the luscious application of oil paints, the soft glow coming from windows and Christmas lights, and the painstaking attention to make every detail in these pieces radiate beauty. No one would mistake these paintings for the work of a tourist; the affection in them is completely genuine and lack any hint of irony. One could imagine walking into any one of these painted houses and settling down for a meal and a beer while watching the television with family and friends.
Herriman Street, oil on board, 24 x 24 inches
At the same time, Williams’ love isn’t blind. As you look closer at these paintings, past the heated interiors, you find “no trespassing” signs and wire fences and gated communities. You realize that you’re standing at the end of a drive, across the street, or at best from the closest sidewalk–not inside with friends. You’re on the outside looking in on these houses that leak warm yellow light and Christmas trees through their windows. In some images, you even notice the red glow from your car’s brake lights as you are pausing to take a peek on your way to your final destination.
You are not invited inside these houses as you wander through town, and there are no people in the images despite them being implicitly inside, going about their evenings. We are looking at a lived-in community, not abandoned ruins, but also not one where we have access to the inhabitants. The viewer becomes a failed voyeur, an outsider looking into a place they can’t access, or a memory that doesn’t fit with their present reality. As Williams says, the paintings function as a “strange kind of souvenir of the places I left and the structures and things I knew most intimately” and “even though I eventually took a job back in my home region, I’ve come to understand that in many ways, I’ll never be home again.”
South Meade Street, oil on board, 11.5 x 29.5 inches
Of course, your home can change even if you are living there the whole time. Williams’ paintings are timeless because of the loving application of paint, but intensely contemporary with the spate of recent shootings in America from, for example, people pulling into the wrong driveway. The warm, inviting living room light in the painting South Laclede Ave certainly doesn’t mean that whoever put up the “no trespassing” sign won’t empty a clip as you try to back out the way you came.
Williams recalls, as a child, playing everywhere in Brookfield with no particular care or fear, and that packs of stray dogs and meth houses have now replaced familiar scenes from her childhood. But her family still lives there–as members of the community–and the paintings become almost desperate in their attempt to portray the beauty of the town. Because you have to remember, as the paintings say without saying, you just don’t speak ill of family members.
South Laclede Avenue, oil on board, 12 x 24 inches
Clayton Street, oil on board, 12 x 24 inches
Ann Street, oil on board, 12 x 24 inches
FURTHER EXPLORATION
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Reminds me of Ways Georgia, below Savannah in the late 40’s right after the War. I grew up bare footed on dirt roads. Nowhere near Ferguson but stil pretty rural.
Thanks.
Thanks for your comment, John. I grew up in Georgia so know exactly what you mean! 🙂