Zeke Williams

ZEKE WILLIAMS

Clear Path

At the beginning of developing this process, Williams quickly learned that the software controlling the computer numeric control router was more attuned to rectilinear commands than to the curvilinear aspects of the drawings he had made based on his grandfather’s national park photographs. With a creative feat of ingenuity, combined with his knowledge, and a background in possible intermediary solutions, Williams was eventually able to sequence together unlikely components in order to inform the computer numeric control router to execute the elements of the compositions that he had made in his preliminary drawings. The ability to create these intricate elements taken from his drawings is evident in areas of very precise, reoccurring patterns, something he credits to sophisticated technology, and the talents of numerous unknown software engineers.

Precision cuts into the plywood expose underlying laminates that are raw and have unfinished surfaces. Williams contrasts these cuts with surfaces that have not been machined, onto which he applies vivid color with a brayer, a tool used in printmaking for the same purpose. Together these diametrically opposed surfaces, raw cuts into the laminated plywood, and the smooth, un-machined areas of the work to which the artist has applied color, give the work a dimensionality that in turn creates a perception of fractured vision as looking through a kaleidoscope might or seeing the work in some altered state of consciousness or perhaps a subdued version of a lenticular effect, causing the image to change slightly viewed from different angles. This visual phenomenon also heightens the sharpness of some aspects of the imagery, while areas on some of the edges of the composition become abstracted, patterned, intricacies that struggle for dominance with their flat, vividly painted counterparts. Williams is especially interested in these areas and describes them as “where patterns break down and well-defined areas become more ambiguous.”

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