WILDEBEEST series 2011

Wildebeest comprises a series of sculptural assemblages, placed together as a site responsive installation. Components include cups, glasses, plates and other habitual objects combined with natural and synthetic found materials.

The work draws on analogies between ‘the wilderness’ and urban contemporary culture. With a note on the madness of table manners and polite conversation - which saturates the history of British High-Society and the chattering classes - and the more unsavory reality that lingers around and underneath the protocol. For Wildebeest, Williams correlates moments from polite conversation with a notion of a larger, more distant landscape.

Having travelled to South Africa earlier this year, Williams has developed works that draw from that experience. The title of the show 'Wildebeest' arises from a moment the artist describes as “uncomfortably reflective and hypnotic”, in which she came across a single wildebeest – isolated and lost from its herd – in the wilderness. The creature stood fixated by some terrifying scent that seemed to encircle it. Unable to move forward or in any other direction, the wildebeest was initially static, but then pounded its feet, its gaze fleeting from place to place, on guard for a predator. “We sat for sometime transfixed in return at the creatures contrasting move between aggressive action and passive unknowing. The experience turned my thoughts back to moments spent in the urban landscape of London, confused, excited or frozen by the unknown.” Concurrently, the wildebeest known for its migratory tendency, plays between this title and the works in the show, and is a reoccurring theme in Williams’ work.

'Looking for Something in the Glare' a video work, accompanies the series and expands on the themes within this body of work...VIEW HERE

PRESS: AnOther Magazine Online. Art Talks: Alys Williams's Wildebeest; June 28 2011. By John-Paul Pryor. READ INTERVIEW HERE

Photographs 1, 4-7 by Suzie Zabrowska.