As an avid outdoorsman with a love for fishing and a determination to create, Mike Williams' passions and interests have seamlessly merged since earning a BFA in Painting from the University of South Carolina in 1990. Memory, metaphor, and a deep connection to nature serve as the foundation for his abstract paintings and sculptural works. In his paintings, he explores the versatility of all water-soluble media and oil, while his sculptures are crafted using carbon steel, stainless steel, and found objects. His work is featured in private and corporate collections, as well as in prestigious institutions such as the South Carolina State Art Collection, the SC State Museum Collection, and the Columbia Museum of Art. Artist Statement: "Simply put, from the beginning to completion, every painting is a new exercise in developing line, form, texture, value and color. There is notable range in the degree of abstraction and particular attributes of each painting produced - some pieces are literally connected through titling - most connections are visual. They’re all related to one another because they were painted in sequence, but the actual sequence is not the focus. I embrace progressions that occur in each new body of work produced, however, most importantly, each individual painting must seem complete in it’s own unique way, have a distinct finished quality exuding raw energy, and a lyrical vibe I regard as complex and satisfying. I consider my entire body of work one giant collective, a continuum started day one and ending when the urge to create vanishes. My paintings evolve out of painting. Relying heavily on instinct, I paint what I feel and categorize it later. After 34 years of practice, I’m still amazed every time at what happens when colors and marks assemble on a surface. , Inspiration comes from memory, previous work, historical references, nature and every other place imaginable. My painting process hinges on direct experimentation and invention, generating surface quality and achieving depth in ever-changing ways. Its authenticity lies in its honesty, energy, imagination, and physicality with which I draw and paint. My knowledge of fish and fishing became the basis for what remains the largest portion of my body of work. Work with what you know, right? Quite simply, fish serve as my vehicle for expressing emotions, relating thoughts and ideas or making formal representations and, in turn, encouraging dialogue. Uninhibitedly, I draw and paint them because I understand them; literally having caught and handled thousands of fish in the past 50 years, I learned about them. My work usually reflects some combination of information gained through my experiences in conjunction with symbolic or historical references. My work aims to appeal to your senses. It’s designed to communicate something to everyone. Abstraction facilitates this, because by nature abstraction is ambiguous. I work in two basic modes. The first relies on memory, which in my case is usually blurred rather than crystal clear. My second mode is simply to respond visually to something I’ve already painted that speaks to me. Within these modes, instinct and intuition are my primary guides, and everything I’ve ever created is rooted in perception and resulting memories. From the first mark until the last, perception is key in understanding how the painting conveys feeling and communicates information to a viewer. Tuning into my memories conjures images that have varying degrees of clarity, much like the imagery in my paintings. My focus is an emotional response to subjects that have great personal significance as well as universal meaning. As such, my primary focus is not draftsmanship or photo-realistic portrayal, even though the subjects of my work are rooted in realism. As ideas become more ambiguous and images more abstract, their scope expands, as do their possible meanings, making the work exponentially more universal."