Heist Gallery is pleased to present HARD LIGHT, the first New York solo exhibition by Jessica Williams. The name is derived from the title of Joan Didion’s essay Los Angeles Notebook, in which she describes the Santa Ana that constantly disrupts Los Angeles, portending anxiety and casting a shadow of malaise over the city. An LA native, Williams explores this unsettling feeling in her often dark and boldly expressive work. Her paintings are at once starkly familiar – nature scenes that transform into violent kidnappings, a lonesome hitchhiker traveling along an abandoned road, a carnival starlet dancing in her grandest glory along an endless highway – yet mysteriously coded in symbols and rich references. She begins each work with a vague conception of its destination, letting her energy and imagination guide every brush stroke and defining line. Exploring themes of loss, death and the impending memory of things long gone, she creates journeys into the deeper recesses of her psyche, which is replete with dreamy characters trapped in a moment between visceral immediacy and brooding contemplation. Windows of vivid colors puncture her tense and dark space, beckoning the viewer to explore the spatial construction of the painting. Much like Didion does in her vivid tone, Williams paints a distinct picture of ominous tension, suggesting an apocalyptic result but never divulging its final effect. Each work explores the transient time trapped between a lingering dream and the delineated reality.

Jessica Williams received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005 and completed her MFA at Columbia in 2008. She currently lives and works in New York City. Williams has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. including Roots + Culture in Chicago, Thierry Goldberg Projects in NY, and at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art in Portland, OR.