ronald
williams
Photography: Rachelle Gray
H
E MAY LOOK QUIET BUT MULTIMEDIA ARTIST
RONALD WILLIAMS SURELY TALKS HARD THROUGH
HIS ART. THE TWENTY-FOUR YEAR OLD HAS A VISUAL
MESSAGE THAT IS QUITE CUTTING.
His education is two-fold, a graduate of the Barbados
Community College (BCC) Bachelor of Fine Arts degree
programme and a lifetime of mass-media consumption.
Roll that up in some independent thought; set alight with
the fire of youth and you are smoking on some biting
pieces of visually suggestive artwork.
Playing on his interests in race and sociology, Ronald’s
current work explores the role that sports and the black
athlete/figures play in society; placing an emphasis on the
perceptions and stereotypes about the ‘black image’.
A fan of many physically competitive sports, Williams
began to pay greater attention to contemporary branding
techniques, which pertained to the black athlete in
particular. This exploration caused him to query racial and
cultural divisions as well as the ideas of fame, celebrity/
hero-worship, consumerism, and identity.
His collages contemplate popular culture while
acknowledging sport as a microcosm of the greater
society. Through the technique of digital collage, popularbased imagery is manipulated to compose images, which
range from artwork in ancient civilizations, images from a
time of institutional racism and black power symbols, to
speak about a multiplicity of issues.
Williams forces the work to be self-contradictory as well
as present conflicting ideologies. A finished piece takes the
shape of a sportsman, onto which society’s perceptions,
stereotypes and fantasies about the black athlete, are
projected.
Final presentations of the work are in the form of largescale prints and sports cards, thereby appropriating the
concept of the athlete as a commodity. The end result
is a satire of our obsession and exploitation of the black
athlete/figure, society’s fascination with the ‘celebrity’ and
the separation of races which ignorance perpetuates.
The following pages features samples of his work
described in his own words.
www.facebook.com/RonaldWilliamsArt
10 | BIM ROCK | SPECIAL FEATURE