Paul Klee has taught us that painting does not represent the visible, but makes visible what the eye cannot capture. Todd Williamson assimilates the lesson of the German, translating pure emotionality in vibrant chromatic ignitions which suddenly burst out against the monochromatic background, making the matter pulsate and the physical space of the canvas come alive.

We may explore Todd’s work by first examining the dense brushstrokes of Good Night, Good Night. On the one side the band of horizontal lines that mark the surface evokes the flat and monotone landscape of Alabama, on the other it suggests the sense of a story, an interior path which winds among the lines of an abstract diary. Like the automatic writing of the surrealists, also Todd’s scorching lines express the dictates of a thought that prevails on the geometrism of reason. The latter is however anything but absent from the artistic creation; indeed, it governs the equilibrium of the composition and the harmonious arrangement of the signs. The role of reason is comparable to that of Mercury in Botticelli’s Spring: excluded from the sphere of love, he nevertheless remains an indispensable presence as counterpoint to Zephyr and Flora. Another element Todd and Botticelli have in common is that neo-platonic sentiment which, even if in different ways, makes the artist depict the spirit as an entity freed from the burden of corporeality.

A close analysis of Williamson’s work suggests further references, echoes and consonances: in the lines of fire which emerge from the surface, like streams of incandescent magma, one seems to perceive a parallel reality made of pulsations and urges which the artist, like every human being, nourishes within. Strong ties therefore connect the abstract compositions of Todd Williamson to the inexorable conflict between being and appearing, the complex plots of interiority and the codified forms of the language in which it is manifested.

Two opposed tensions coexist in this intensely lyrical painting, with its delicate shades and precise chromatic rendition: a centrifugal force which makes the substratum emerge and launch itself towards the exterior, and a centripetal force which makes the eye of the observer pierce through the painting surface to venture beyond and explore the unconscious which may be glimpsed through those lines of fire.