User:Bernardwilliamsart

Life
Bernard Williams is a native of Chicago, Illinois (b. 1964 ). He holds a BFA Degree from the University of Ill. at Champaign-Urbana, and a Master of Fine Arts Degree (1990) from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. He also studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, 1987. Williams taught art at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1991-2003 and 2010.

=== Career === The artist has been commissioned to create enormous outdoor murals around Chicago and abroad. Mural commissions have been sponsored by a range of organizations and corporations including AT&T, GATX Corp., Kraft Foods, the Snite Museum of Art at the Univ. of Notre Dame, Indiana, Chicago Dept. of Cultural Affairs, Chicago Public Schools, and the Jackson Public School District, Jackson, MS. He is currently represented by the Thomas McCormick Gallery in Chicago.

In 2003 the artist was selected as a resident artist at the prestigious Fine Arts Works Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He was supported there for seven months (Oct.2003-May2004) pursuing independent projects.

Recognition
Bernard Williams has received strong recognition as a painter and sculptor both regionally and nationally. In 2003 and 2007 Williams was awarded an Illinois Arts Council Grant of $7000. In 2001 the artist was among 20 artists from Chicago and San Francisco to be awarded a $10,000. grant from the Artadia Foundation to continue studio work. He has been featured at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, MS (2001), and the African-American Museum in Dallas, TX (2002). Selected group exhibitions include REMIX, at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in New York (2008)and The Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada (2009). Williams was included in a group show at Exit Art in New York in April 2010.

In 2009 the artist completed his first solo exhibition in Brooklyn, NY at Slate Gallery. He maintained a studio in Brooklyn from 2007-2009. In May 2009, Williams completed a large temporary outdoor sculpture in Long Island City at the venerable Socrates Sculpture Park. A solo exhibition is scheduled for September 2010 at Thomas McCormick gallery in Chicago, and in 2011 he completed a 6-week residency in New Orleans, LA. Coordinated by Tulane University. In 2011 a large collection (150 pieces) of wood cut-out symbols, titled Buffalo Chart, was acquired by the Mott-Walsh collection Flint, MI. The artist has paintings in permanent collections at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis and the Snite Museum on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. In 2013 the artist will mount a large temporary outdoor sculpture at the Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, MO. A permanent steel sculpture measuring 12’x 9’x10’ is currently under development with a Chicago-based housing corporation, with an installation scheduled for March 2013.