William Fields

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Louise Ross Gallery in New York says:
"Informed by hermetic science and a lifelong study of world religion, Fields’ virtuosic, brilliantly colored drawings transport the viewer to a fantastic universe – a cosmology where gods and demigods exist under moons and constellations of the artist’s own conjuring. Figures dissolve and reconstitute themselves repetitiously in accelerating rivulets of electrified color and delineation; monumental apparitions emerge out of dense, multi-faceted metamorphoses of form. Jewel-like faces materialize and dematerialize in tandem, since the entranced artist doesn’t know what he is bringing to life as the drawing nears completion. The work reveals an artist who is in the service of a magical force."

Biography from Winstom/Salem Gallery:
"Meditative journeys and out-of-body experiences are the inspiration for the unique artwork of William Fields. In conveying the power of his own spiritual visions, Fields has developed a complex iconography of forms and symbols, many borrowed from a wide range of world religions. Born in 1940, Fields has no formal art training and is considered a self-taught, visionary artist such as Minnie Evans or the Reverand Howard Finster. Since his earliest visions Fields has made an exhaustive study of non-Western religions, including Saivism, Tibetan Buddhism, Gnostic Christianity and Theosophy and these studies form the background for his current series of work, The Illuminations Suite.
"Fields' pastel and pencil drawings are almost figural depictions of spirit beings to whom he relates in visions,"writes David Need for the Independent Weekly. "The drawing itself is elegant and restrained; the works stand on their own in terms of craft. At first glance, the images have a psychedelic vocabulary, but their power goes far beyond the ornamental design effects of 1960s art. The figures are complex, with multiple faces and bodies...the effect is to suggest a dynamic, relational presence."

William Fields has exhibited his large scale drawings at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, the Columbia Museum, Wake Forest University and Duke University. His artwork has been reviewed in Art in America, Raw Vision and the New York Times.