Amanda Williams (artist) facts for kids

Amanda Williams, born in 1974, is a talented artist who lives in Bridgeport, Chicago. She grew up in the South Side of Chicago. Amanda first studied to become an architect. Her art explores how color, people, and places are connected. She often mixes ideas from art and architecture.

Amanda has taught at many famous schools. These include the California College of the Arts and Cornell University. She has also given talks at important places. Some of these are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a TED conference.

Early Life and Education

Amanda Williams was born in Evanston, Illinois. She grew up in the Auburn-Gresham area of Chicago. For high school, she went to the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.

In 1997, she earned her architecture degree from Cornell University. She was also part of a special group called Quill and Dagger. After college, she worked for an architecture company in San Francisco for six years. Then, she moved back to Chicago to focus on art full-time.

Amazing Art Projects

Amanda Williams' art often looks at how race, city spaces, and colors connect. Her background in architecture greatly influences her work. She once felt that painting on canvas was not enough. A visiting art critic challenged her to make her art bigger, like her architecture.

Besides her large projects, Amanda has also shown her work in New York. One exhibition was called What Black is This, You Say?. This art was a response to important events about racial justice.

Color(ed) Theory

Her most famous project is Color(ed) Theory. It was first shown at the Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015. This project bravely looked at race and space in Chicago's South Side.

Between 2014 and 2016, Amanda painted eight empty houses. These houses were in the Englewood neighborhood. She got help from her friends and family. Amanda picked eight colors that reminded her of black culture in the South Side. These colors included Harold's Chicken Shack red and Newport 100's teal. Other colors were Crown Royal Bag purple and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos orange. She also used Ultrasheen conditioner blue, Pink Oil moisturizer, Currency Exchange yellow, and Safe Passage yellow.

The bright colors turned the empty houses into art. This project showed how some black communities do not get enough money or care. It highlighted how these neighborhoods can decline. The project was shown as a series of photographs.

Uppity Negress

Uppity Negress is an outdoor art piece. It was part of The Arts Club of Chicago Garden Projects. This artwork is placed between public and private areas. It makes people think about who can access city spaces.

The art uses an existing fence. Amanda added a second fence that breaks away from the first. By changing the fence, Williams makes us question what fences mean. They can be both containers and barriers. This is especially true for women and people of color. The title "uppity negress" refers to how black women are sometimes seen. Amanda creates a confusing space with a changed fence. This makes us think about black women's place in the city.

Chicago Works: First Solo Exhibition

Amanda Williams had her first solo art show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. It ran from July to December 2017. In this show, she explored changes in modern city areas. The exhibition included sculptures and photos. They focused on how a place affects the value of materials.

Williams asked viewers to think about social, political, and racial stories. These stories can make a neighborhood seem less valuable. Her work focused on Chicago's South Side. However, her ideas can apply to almost any modern city.

Amanda's gold brick artworks were also in the show. They looked at how city areas change. They questioned how we decide the value of buildings in declining neighborhoods. With help from friends and family, Amanda carefully painted bricks. These bricks came from the demolished Color(ed) Theory houses. She painted them with imitation gold-leaf.

In It’s a Gold mine/ Is the Gold Mine?, a stack of gold-painted bricks sits on a pallet. By using bricks from torn-down buildings, Williams gives value to old materials. Painting them gold and showing them in museums adds more importance. This also hints at the historical "gold standard." In She’s Mighty Mighty, Just Letting’ It All Hang Out, a golden brick wall blocks a gallery entrance. There was also a room blocked by gold bricks. Only residents from Englewood could enter this special room. The gold bricks continued her Color(ed) Theory project. They showed how tearing down and rebuilding can change people's lives in cities. This raises important questions about social and political issues in Chicago.

Cadastral Shaking

For the start of Lori Lightfoot's time as mayor of Chicago, the Smart Museum of Art loaned Cadastral Shaking (Chicago v1). This is part of a series of prints. Williams and journalist Natalie Y. Moore based them on old Chicago maps. These maps were used by the Federal Housing Administration. They started a practice called redlining, which unfairly divided neighborhoods.

She Built NYC

Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous won a special project. They will create a public monument to honor Shirley Chisholm. This monument will be in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. It was announced on April 24, 2019.

What Black is This You Say?

From November to December 2020, Amanda Williams showed new art. It was a series of colorful artworks at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago. This art was a response to #Blackout Tuesday. That was a social media movement protesting events related to racial justice. Through her art, she wanted to explore the many meanings and feelings of the color black. This was connected to the Black experience.

Selected Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions:

• 2017:
  • July 18 - Dec, 2017 - Chicago Works: Amanda Williams - Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
  • June 17 - September 23, 2017 - Uppity Negress - The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL
  • Spring - Fall 2017 - A Way, Away (Listen While I Say) - Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, MO
  • September 1 - January 31, 2018 - Off the Wall - Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, IL
  • 50x50 City of Chicago Year of Public Art - Department of Cultural Affairs, Chicago, IL
• 2015:
  • of REQUIEMS and RELIQUARIES: work by AMANDA WILLIAMS - Chicago Art Department, Chicago, IL

Group exhibitions:

• 2019:
  • Solidary and Solitary - Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, IL
• 2018:
  • Dimensions of Citizenship - Venice Biennale of Architecture
• 2016:
  • At First I Left Messages In the Street (curated by Allison Glenn), Chicago, IL
• 2015:
  • Colo(red) Theory - Chicago Architecture Biennial, Chicago, IL
  • Vacancy... - Glass Curtain Gallery, Columbia College, Chicago, IL

Recognition and Awards

• MacArthur Foundation Grant, 2022
• Leadership Greater Chicago, Fellow, 2018
• United States Artists Fellow for Architecture & Design, 2018
• Designer, member of ensemble representing U.S. in Venice Biennale of Architecture, 2018
• Member, exhibition design team for Obama Presidential Center, 2018
• Painter & Sculptors Grant, Joan Mitchell Foundation, 2017
• Efroysom Family Contemporary Arts Fellow, 2016
• Stan Lipkin & Evelyn Appell Lipkin Award, 3Arts, 2014