Screaming at the Sky

Gerald Williams (b. 1941) is a co-founder of AfriCOBRA and a foundational figure in Black American art. His artistic practice was transformed during his time in Kenya with the Peace Corps in the late 1970s, where the intensity of East African light prompted a shift toward increasingly meditative mark-making. Williams developed his signature pointillist technique—dense constellations of dots built through laborious, contemplative processes—reclaiming the nineteenth-century European pointillist strategy as a distinctly diasporic visual language rooted in community, memory, spirituality, and interconnectedness. His works employ acrylic on canvas, layered Plexiglas, and mixed media assemblages combining acrylic, wooden dowels, and collage. Across six decades of practice, Williams has maintained an unwavering commitment to exploring visibility, dignity, imagination, and freedom through evolving formal investigations.