Bio:
Carl Joseph Williams was born in Uptown New Orleans (b.1970). Art was Williams’ first love. At fourteen he was accepted into The New Orleans Center for Creative Art ( NOCCA) where he received his formal training.
Upon completing high school, Williams continued his studies at the Atlanta College of Art. In Atlanta, Williams flourished in his craft; graduating in 1994, produced solo exhibitions, participated in several group exhibitions and completed several public art projects.
Williams’ work has been displayed in several venues throughout the United States, including Journeys, an installation at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and Williams’ Sculptural Trees installation on the median of Veterans Boulevard.
In 2013, Williams’s had a solo exhibition at the George Ohr Museum in Biloxi, Mississippi and was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell NOLA Studio Artist Residence Program. Also, Williams was selected to participate in the 2014 Crystal Bridges State of the Art Discovering exhibition.
My work has evolved into a multiplicity of visions, directions, and intuitive gestures. The paintings, installations, and sculptures I create are a product of recalled images of cumulative life experiences. Various forms of music, as well as the rhythm of people, and places assist in the creating and molding of the character of my work.
I see my art and music as extensions of each other. I often use music as a model by incorporating its structure, rhythms, and dynamics elements into each piece; emerging into a new realm of experience.
Objects are also a very important part of the creation and aesthetic of my art. Found objects are a continuum of a narrative flowing through the work, becoming elements of a story intricately woven into a work of art, in order to create a new meaning and new context, in an attempt to display in the layers the images interrelationship of cosmic forces and every-day. This search for universality continues to drive and inform my work.
Aesthetics of the work involves many complex color combinations and rhythmic patterns inspired by geometric patterns found in nature. Rhythms and harmonies converge into a symphony of colors that work together to create a powerful visual experience.
It is my vision to create pieces that bring a since of intrigue, color and excitement while addressing the physiological and historical concerns of everyday people.
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).