Thursday, April 10, 2025, from 6 to 7:30 pm

Artist Conversation: Contemporary Art from Guyana and the legacy of Denis Williams

featuring artist Sandra Brewster and curator Ohene Koama

In the Pavilion

Denis Williams, 1923–98, was a seminal visual artist, anthropologist, educator, and novelist. Born and raised in Guyana, he lived and worked across the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. One of the first Black artists to achieve critical acclaim in London, UK, in the early 1950s, Williams developed a practice that unfurled in dialogue with numerous cultural figures like art historian Ulli Beier, 1922–2011, known for founding the literary magazine Black Orpheus and British artist, critic, and early supporter of Williams’ work Wyndham Lewis,1882–1957, as well as Mozambican painter and poet Malangatana Ngwenya,1936–2011, setting the template for the transnational peripatetic artist we see today.

To reflect on Williams’ legacy as well as the field of contemporary art in Guyana and among its diasporas today, we’ve invited Toronto-based Guyanese-Canada artist Sandra Brewster to be in conversation with Ohene Koama, curator of Guyana’s National Gallery of Art, Castellani House.

 

 

Denis Williams with Plantation No. 1, 1949, from Evelyn A. Williams, The Art of Denis Williams (Peepal Tree Press Ltd, 2012).

This event is funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and presented in partnership with the Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean. Organized by Felicia Mings.