Didier William
Swinging in the sheets with my love, 2022
Acrylic paint, oil paint and wood carving on panel
183 × 127 cm
About the work
Didier William is a multidisciplinary painter who combines oil paint, acrylic paint, collage, printmaking techniques and wood carving. Drawing on his personal experience as an immigrant from Haiti to the United States, he explores themes such as identity, migration and cultural belonging. He draws inspiration from Haitian history, mythology, folklore and Vodou, interweaving them with his own experiences.
His powerful compositions continually shift between figuration and abstraction. At first glance, their monumental scale and flat compositions evoke traditional painting, but William disrupts these conventions by combining different materials and techniques within a single image. The result is a series of layered works in which personal memories, history and cultural identity overlap.
A striking feature of his work is the hundreds of small eyes he carves directly into the surface. They cover the bodies of his monumental, almost otherworldly figures and transform the relationship between the artwork and the viewer. As we look at the figures, countless eyes appear to gaze back at us from within the painting.
Looking thus becomes a reciprocal experience. The viewer is no longer merely the observer but is also being observed. William invites us to move closer to the surface and experience the work not only visually, but almost physically. In this way, the boundaries between looking and being looked at, proximity and distance, and space and time begin to blur.
Didier William
° 1983 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Lives and works in Philadelphia, United States.
Didier William received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale University School of Art.
His work has been exhibited at institutions including the Bronx Museum of Art, the Museum of Latin American Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, the Carnegie Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Figge Art Museum. He has also taught at several institutions, including the Yale School of Art, Vassar College, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and SUNY Purchase.