Saturday, February 21, 2026 at 1:00 PM to Saturday, April 4, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Los Angeles
A combination of pitched psychological tension with intuitive illusion, Frank James Williams unfolds contemporary Black Noir with his exhibition, Standing Still. On view are new paintings with a few early selections of drawings dating from the 1980s. His subjects are family, friends, and acquaintances in unassuming dress. What pushes his paintings beyond ordinary into extraordinary are the subjects’ unrelenting gaze, their relationship to architecture, which is articulated yet austere, high and low light rendered in color, and their enigmatic shadows that become performers stretching across the painting—all are equal correspondents suspended in a surreal state of animation and mystery.Upon visiting the studio of Frank James Williams, I was transported to the early Noir films I grew up with: espionage, resistance, decline, and grit, all dramatized in haunting chiaroscuro. In the 1970s through 90s, the New Black Cinema began subverting those early noir strategies in what critic and cultural theorist Manthia Diawara called “Black Noir.” Williams’ paintings take shape from this period, where Black realism and culture shine a light through figure, shadow, architecture, and color.