Azaleas and Moss: Pattern and Light

Through the exaggeration of color, light, and surface, these paintings allude to the mystique of the Lowcountry. The paintings shape Williams’ familiarity with the region—its visual intensity, atmosphere, and cultural weight—offering a contemporary approach to documenting a place that is both lived in and continuously reimagined in his practice.

Williams uses airbrushing as a primary tool, working within a vernacular visual language of smooth gradients and glowing stars, a similar aesthetic to what you'd find on an airbrushed t-shirt. While this aesthetic is not exclusive to the South, it carries a distinct cultural presence in the region and is treated here as a formal method for constructing the image. Azaleas are rendered as glowing firefly-like blossoms, at once ornamental and ambient, familiar yet slightly unreal.

Airbrushed Painting to Chamber Music Backdrop

In 2022, Spoleto Festival USA commissioned Williams to design a new backdrop for the Bank of America Chamber Music series at Charleston’s Dock Street Theatre. View Chamber Backdrop .