Zoë Williams is a new media artist based in Seattle, Washington. She was born in 1983 in New Orleans, Louisiana where she lived until hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. Having spent the greater part of her life in New Orleans, she has been considerably influenced by the aesthetic of that place; its history, architecture, and mystery. A taste for the macabre is often evident in her work, as well as a dark sense of humor. Over the years she has cultivated a passion for travel, exploring the globe with frequency and enthusiasm. Tokyo is a favorite destination and a frequent source of inspiration as well. Her enthusiasm for travel is perhaps exceeded only by her passion for the inner world of dreams. Ever since childhood, she has enjoyed a vivid and active dream life. She was introduced to dream analysis by her parents, who imparted an understanding of the basics of Jungian psychology at an early age. She has continued to analyze and interpret her dreams, drawing much inspiration directly from them.
In her work, Zoë Williams confronts the symbolic imagery of dreams and visions. Frequently very personal, her subjects are often meditations on dream images or abstract concepts. She strives to capture the role played by the observer as well and often plays with concepts of duality and opposites. Subjects are simultaneously beautiful and horrible, cute and creepy, familiar and strange. Although each piece has a specific and private significance to the artist, her own interpretations are not universal and will likely not be meaningful to others. The viewer is therefore encouraged to make his or her own associations, as one would after having a vivid dream. Her work has been displayed at venues around the country, notably the Lower Eastside Girls Club in New York, NY; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, LA; and the Museum of Death in Los Angeles, CA.
Materials
Recent work is constructed using a dry felting technique, known as needle felting, in which a barbed needle is used to shape and mold wool fibers into sculptural forms. Needle felting is a very slow and painstaking process; the carded wool is pierced hundreds of times to lock the fibers together and create a solid object. No armatures are used; each piece is solid wool with the exception of additions like glass eyes, lenses and beads, and the wood plaques/frames on which some pieces are mounted.
See more work by Zoe HERE
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