Sandy Williams IV

Sandy Williams IV is an artist and filmmaker working in sculpture, cinema, performance, painting, photography, text and the public. His work is about the persistence of memory, the body, and resistance. Through various media, Williams performs acts of persistence, as a dynamic engagement with the historical, in pursuit of the threads that connect diasporic origin stories to the official record. This work gives agency to him and the audience to both actively participate in the creation of future mythologies and build theories towards the emancipation of our public spaces. In a recent statement, he notes, “my work right now is dealing with a sense of inertia. I am interested in the way time can be passed down, transformed, and gathered inside of us, as well as in the things around us, through a propensity towards rest, also called history.”

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Williams received his BFA from The University of Virginia in 2016 and his MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from VCUarts in 2019. He has held teaching positions at VCUarts and The University of Richmond, where he is currently an adjunct professor in the sculpture department. His work has been shown at Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, NY; Dorsky Gallery, Long Island City, NY; Guadalajara 90210, Mexico City, Mexico; Public Pool Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA; and Co-Prosperity Sphere, Chicago, IL, among others.