The Texture of a “Synonym” in the New Works of Justin Williams

I’ll be honest in that I sort of like a good Google search for a synonym when I get stuck. Some use ChatGPT, I use a synonym search. I thought about this over the weekend when I was looking at these new paintings by Justin Williams, these elegant, articulate, story-paintings that seem to be an entire folktale on one canvas. We’ve written so much about figurative painting over the last 30 years and somehow, Justin Williams’ new show at Roberts Projects feels like the right synonym to describe what a good painting should be. It’s all here.