Aubrey Williams’ work combines aesthetic influences derived from his experience living and working within multiple cultural contexts. He was born in Guyana, and lived in London, Jamaica, and Coral Gables, Florida. While in London he was a founding member of the influential Caribbean Artist Movement, involving artists and intellectuals living there during the 1970s. This painting was produced while he was living in Jamaica and displays a synthesis of his interests in biology, ecology, and European and North American abstraction, as well as Caribbean light and his studies of pre-Columbian cultures. The painting’s soft-focus, colorful, and abstract ground contrasts with more sharply articulated markings and lines inspired by Mayan hieroglyphics. As linguistic and cultural signs, these forms float in a nebulous space, defying clarity or definition. 
Identification
Title
Toltec (Jamaica)
Production Date
1973
Object Number
2013.53
Credit Line
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase
Copyright
© 2022 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London
Copy artwork link
Physical Qualities
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
35 1/8 x 47 1/8 inches
Visual Description
Toltec (Jamaica) by Aubrey Williams is a painting from 1973. It is made of oil on canvas.  The painting measures roughly three feet by four feet and it is hung in landscape orientation, meaning that its longest side runs parallel to the floor. This painting is an example of an abstraction, which is a style of painting that focuses on the gestural movement of shapes and colors rather than depicting scenes or figures.   The painting is divided into three horizontal stripes, each one third of the way down the painting from top to bottom. The top stripe begins in the upper left corner of the painting. In that corner is a green rectangle with a pink circle and a horizontal marron line inside of it. Along the bottom and right edge of the rectangle is a yellow outline.  Moving to the right of this is a red orange oval. Curving around the top of the oval is a purple arc. The edge of the arc has a bit of green that is outlined at the top and bottom by a yellow line. Above the arc is a black background with pink purple and yellow splotches on its side. Beneath the red orange oval is a narrow pink purple bar with black around its edges. It, and the rest of the oval, is outlined with a yellow line. To the right of this shape is a yellow line that follows the rest of the composition to the right. To the right of this section is a pink purple area that goes all the way to the top of the painting. To the left and right of this pink purple section are mixes of green, yellow and brown splotches. To the right of this from the bottom of the top third of the painting up to the top edge of the painting is a thin black line.  The rest of this top section, to the right, is one solid shape with different colors in the background. It is mostly green with specks of blue and yellow.  The second third of the painting underneath it, beginning from the left, has an entire background of the same pink purple that appears throughout the painting. The bottom of this third of the painting is outlined with an orange line. Moving to the right, lined up with the red orange oval above it, is another red orange sickle shape. The ends of this shape are red and the center of it is beige with blue green lines, some horizontal, some diagonal, seven in total. Behind the sickle shape, in the center, is a red oval. To the right of this shape, in between the top and bottom thirds of the painting, is a red organic shape, outlined in yellow. In the middle of this shape is a black line that divides it, cutting across it horizontally. Continuing right there is a red orange rectangle with rounded edges. At the bottom of it is a floating green circle with a black mark at the top of it. The top left of the shape has a pink purple hole in it, with the missing red shape from the hole hanging to the left of the shape. To the right is an “M” shaped white outline. Above the M shape is a red rectangle leaning to the left at an angle. The top of the rectangle has an orange outline with a green line above it that gangs over the right edge of the rectangle. To the right is an amorphous orange red shape with three finger like extensions. The shape has green marks in the middle of it.  Floating above the orange shape is an orange rectangle. It has a thin yellow outline with five green marks spread throughout it. The bottom third of this painting features a green brown background. To the left is a pink purple rectangle with a curved bottom. Beneath the pink purple is a white shape that thins out into a white line moving under the sickle shape. To the right of the sickle is another inverted pink purple sickle shape. Extending from it is a white line that continues under the rectangular orange column from the middle section. Underneath it is an orange oval, with ten maroon lines spread throughout it at different angles. The oval is surrounded by a yellow green outline. To the right of the oval is a pink purple horizontal bar. Above it there are yellow white brush marks and above it is a pink purple shape with appendages that extend out to the right. Above the extension that, a yellowish orange rectangle with the top right corner leaning to the right. Beneath it is a purple rectangle with a yellow outline and some yellow splotches in the middle of it. The top right corner of the rectangle extends outward.
Aubrey Williams
Aubrey Williams — b. 1926, Georgetown, Guyana; d. 1990, London
Artist Page