Amanda Williams

Amanda Williams is a visual artist who trained as an architect at Cornell University. Her practice blurs the distinction between art and architecture through works that employ color as a way to draw attention to the political complexities of race, place, and value in cities. The landscapes in which she operates are the visual residue of the invisible policies and forces that have misshapen most inner cities. Williams’ installations, paintings, video, and works on paper seek to inspire new ways of looking at the familiar, and in the process, raise questions about the state of urban space in the United States.

Williams has exhibited widely, including the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis. She is a 2018 United States Artists Fellow, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors grantee, an Efroymson Family Contemporary Arts Fellow, a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow, and a member of the multidisciplinary exhibition design team for the Obama Presidential Center. She is a recipient of the 2017 Pulitzer Arts Foundation Design/Build commission in collaboration with SAIC Associate Professor in Art Education Andres L. Hernandez (MA 2004). Williams has served as a visiting assistant professor of Architecture at Cornell University and Washington University in St. Louis. She lives and works on Chicago’s South Side.

Established in 2006 by a generous gift from Bill and Stephanie Sick, this distinguished visiting professorship enables internationally renowned artists and designers to visit and teach at SAIC.

More information about the event

Amanda Williams' website

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Kamin, Blair. "Chicago in Venice: A first look at the U.S. pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale," Chicago Tribune

Waxman, Lori. “Suddenly, artist Amanda Williams is everywhere,” Chicago Tribune

Sierzputowski, Kate. “Pushing Back Against the Sensational Image of Chicago as “Chi-raq,’” Hyperallergic

Hieggelke, Brian. “Designer of the Moment: Amanda Williams,” Newcity Design

Beete, Paulette. “Art Talk with Visual Artist and Architect Amanda Williams,” Art Works Blog