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.
This video is part of an ongoing series that gives you exclusive access into the studios of New Orleans-based artists.
Film Production: Mike Lancaster
Music: Carl Joe Williams
Supported by Pelican Bomb
III. AND THE MIT ECONOMIST BEHIND THE CREATION OF THE BRAZIL-BORN Integrated Global Creative Economy
Matrix team-member Darius Mans, Economist (PhD, MIT), president of Africare (largest aid organization in Africa), presents Africare award to Lula (2012). From 2000 to 2004 Darius served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola, leading a team which generated $150 million in annual lending, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment. Darius lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador, Bahia.
IV. LET THERE BE PATHWAYS!
"I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
— Susan Rogers, Personal recording engineer for Prince at Paisley Park Recording Studio; Director, Music Perception & Cognition Laboratory, Berklee College of Music
"Many thanks for this - I am touched!" — Julian Lloyd Webber
"I'm truly thankful... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)" — Nduduzo Makhathini, Blue Note Records
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!" — Alicia Svigals, Klezmer violin, Founder of The Klezmatics
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))" — Clarice Assad
"Thank you" — Banch Abegaze, manager, Kamasi Washington
The Matrix uncoils from the Recôncavo of Bahia, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history and from where some of the most physically and spiritually uplifting music ever made evolved...
...all essentially cut off from the world at large. But after 40,000 years of artistic creation by mankind, it's finally now possible to create bridges closely interconnecting all artists everywhere (having begun with the Saturno brothers above).
By the same mathematics positioning some 8 billion human beings within some 6 or so steps of each other, people in the Matrix tend to within close, accessible steps of everybody else inside the Matrix.
Brazil is not a European nation. It's not a North American nation. It's not an East Asian nation. It straddles — jungle and desert and dense urban centers — both the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil's national music — the pandeiro — the hand drum in the opening scene above — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil's culturally fecund nordeste/northeast, where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa (Lagoon of the Canoe) and raised in Olho d'Águia (Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil's aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
