DIANE WILLIAMS

Emerging from the Pall
Wire, wool, yarn, leather, shredded paintings
36” x 30” x 42”
2019

Monsters & Aliens #1
Photograph
9” x 11”
2019

Diane Williams’ work poses questions about cultural identity and feelings of alienation, as refracted through race and gender. Emerging from the Pall and Monsters and Aliens #1 are both components from a series of performances, photographs and drawings in which Williams makes herself into an anonymous, fictitious beast. Williams puts on the oversized monster head made of discarded scraps; the headpiece both obscures and reveals her to the viewer and impairs her own ability to see clearly. In the photo, Williams wears a similar headpiece while seated, hands-folded in a uniform-dress, evoking feelings of obedience, awkwardness, condescension, and shame.

Williams is always meticulous in her collecting of materials and symbols - some are completely generic, others are collected from and have specific cultural meaning for Philippine immigrants living in diaspora. Ultimately, her work asks us why race and gender so often end up being instruments of social detachment and a modality for human disconnection.