Bri Williams

Interview by Simon Wu

Bri Williams’s sculptures render domestic and found objects with an aura of memory, trauma, and myth. Often encasing materials in soap and resin, she suspends things like taxidermied sparrows, antique racialized dolls, and old clothes in a state of precarious preservation, drawing from personal experiences and history. The first time I saw her sculptures, at her first New York solo show at Queer Thoughts in 2020, they reminded me of memories I had never had, but was made to have now, in the space of the gallery. Following her recognition on the Short List for the 2021 Foundwork Artist Prize this winter, we spoke over Zoom about her process, the burden of identity, and the stories behind her work.

Simon Wu (SW): Many of the materials in your work are reclaimed or found. I wondered if you wanted to talk about your process of finding these things, and where they come from.

Bri Williams (BW): I have used a lot of taxidermied house sparrows in my work. The house that I grew up in had house sparrows that would come every spring and make nests at the edges of the roof. The baby birds would sometimes fall out of their nests—sometimes they would be baby birds, or they would just be cracked eggs, falling every once in a while. I remember once, when I was little, taking an egg and trying to sit on it and it breaking. I guess a lot of these objects come from my immediate surroundings, or sometimes I scavenge in vacant lots or coastal areas. I've just always been interested in the narrative or symbolism behind these objects, and kind of save them until they can pair with another and create a story. At the time, house sparrows were endangering the blue bird species by eating their eggs. Sorry, Zoom chats make me nervous.

SW: It's okay.

BW: After a while, I began to source out certain objects to recreate a space that can exist in the present, past, and future—trying to recognize certain patterns in dreams or nightmares that sometimes collide with reality.

SW: For the bird cage in Chelsea (2021), is that something that you kept or is it a personal item?

BW: The birdcage was something that I got at an antique store, which is one of the places that I like to go to find objects and inspiration. I've been going to this store since I was a kid. The birdcage is an extension of the idea behind the bird sculptures. I named them after movies like Anna Lucasta, Jezebel, and Carmen, all classic films about outspoken women who were an interruption to their society, publicly shamed, and ostracized.

Chelsea, 2021

Taxidermy sparrow, bird cage stand, soap, resin

SW: And did you learn to taxidermy them yourself?

BW: No, I didn't taxidermy them then. I was too scared. But I did put an untaxidermied Pettirosso bird’s body in a sculpture at Progetto in Lecce, Italy—it was a bird that flew into Jamie Sneider’s window.

SW: Afraid to handle a dead thing, or what about it?

BW: I guess I was afraid to handle it, gut it etc. They are very delicate.

SW: So much of your work has the quality of a memory, or a religious icon or reliquary. Is that something of interest, a quality that you like to strike in your work? I'm looking at Rip It Up (2021), and the image on it, which looks like it's two things hugging each other. How do you come to the images that you put in your work?

BW: I guess Rip It Up is a more charged image. I had been thinking a lot about the crooked connections between American Christianity and white supremacy. But it's not the religion itself; it's the way of manipulation, of taking advantage of spirituality in order to employ control. I was thinking about the intertwining elements of spiritual propaganda and cult logic. It is a spiral.

Rip It Up, 2021

Wwood, candle

SW: It's also interesting to look at the way you make marks on these works. It looks like you burn some, and you scratch, and then there are also maybe other things. Can you talk about that process?

BW: I use a dremel and a wood burning pen. Some of them are more simple, relying on mark making and texture. And I guess with Rip It Up I also used the burner I use to heat wax and soap.

SW: I see. They also look very domestic to me. Do they have a relationship to childhood for you, or not really?

BW: I would say it's a childlike process; it's like when you're a kid and you're drawing on furniture and carving on school desks.

SW: A work like Pearl looks more explicitly like children's toys. I wondered if you could talk about what's encased in that object, but also maybe more broadly about how you came to work with soap, and what interests you about soap in general?

BW: The figurines were handed down to me, they are vintage Sass-N-Class souvenirs from Louisiana. While trying to use them to make a compression mold, some of the parts got stuck in the wax and broke off. It is a woman holding a spade fan with a flower pot in between and a baby dressed in a white dress on the other side, both reaching towards each other. The pale pink wax became a cloud they were inside, framing them as angels.

I started working with soap after working with resin. All the things that happened while experimenting morphed into the living agents of the material. The relation to the body, to sweat, to purification.

Pearl, 2021

Soap, wax, ceramic figures, necklace

SW: They look like there's a history there, either real or imagined. Every object in your sculptures looks like it has a story behind it. I think the soap, as you're saying, that hazy quality, lends a bit of that sense of history. Now I'm looking at Bathsheba (2021). That definitely looks like it has a story. It's like a mood board for an evening. Who is she?

BW: It was fun making that piece. I started working with raven’s wings as a symbol of fallen dark angels. The title is based from the biblical story of Bathsheba, another story about a woman in the Bible shamed for “promiscuity" after she was raped by a king. Over time, little microbubbles of humidity started to submerge the wing, slowly eating it. The earrings are costume jewelry. The black iron is from a BBQ grill. Sometimes I like to speak about work abstractly, but I feel like it’s important to include my identity, to bring it under the umbrella of a broader topic.

SW: I relate to that. Does it seem that it's pressure from the outside or from institutions that want to frame your work in a way that is about identity?

BW: I think so, but it’s also imaginary pressure. In the beginning, my aim was to deconstruct the way I thought about social identity. But sometimes, depending on the current state of the world, I’ll feel the need to say something. It took me a long time to create a visual language; in the end, my goal was to do the opposite of what I was supposed to do. That’s what I relate to abstraction.

Bathsheba, 2021

Earrings, metal, raven’s wing, wood

SW: It's very illuminating to hear more about your own personal relationship to the work. But I also feel that when I look at it, I have a reaction that's separate, and on a level that is more abstract. It feels like it's giving me a memory that I didn't have.

I'm looking at Purse and Bait, which has a flower in it. Earlier you mentioned that you might not work with sparrows anymore. How has your relationship to working with formerly living material changed or developed?

BW: Purse was a piece I made from part of a cabinet, using burnt soap to make ridged and oozing scars with rubber on top to create a skin.

I guess I'm starting to change my values. I’m thinking more about natural ecosystems and what I'm contributing if I continue to work with taxidermied animals and birds. I’m thinking more about ecological footprint and trying to figure out another way to create art without waste. I'm getting back to working with what I got, which will still include recycled soap.

SW: That makes sense. Do you know Elizabeth Englander at all? She was in “The Quickening” with you, and I interviewed her earlier. She was talking a lot about shipping, because she works really hard to make sculptures out of recycled materials, but then if she has a show in New York, the work has to be shipped across the country. Then the ecological footprint balloons. It seems like it's a difficult thing to navigate.

BW: It is difficult. I didn’t have a chance to meet her but I admire the care she takes in her work. And I guess, in the beginning, the dream of having an object that is monumental can get in the way of seeing the bigger picture, especially now. Using recycled materials and objects is important.

SW: Are you interested in monumentality?

BW: Of course. I have made a lot of larger scale pieces in the past, such as this piece called Precipice (2020), using large mirrors to create an atmosphere. I guess I'm less interested in making more monumental pieces, and more interested in creating installations with smaller works.

SW: Do you want to talk a bit about Precipice and how it came to be for you?

BW: I had been eyeing this metal sculpture lamp for a long time because it is such a janky, rigid, sharp form. The icon is this supercharged object—an erratic smiley character whose face was falling off, printing into its own encasement, while his shadow-self was being punctured in the back of the head. The color from the face started to erode and oxidize when encased in the soap.

Precipice, 2020

Metal, soap, curtain rod

SW: Were sci-fi and Octavia Butler a part of your work?

BW: Not intentionally, though people have told me to read Octavia Butler. I have only finished a few pages and intend to read more. I love sci-fi, and I think that Lovecraft Country was so inspiring. I could not believe it—it was everything. Using the darkness of American history to reveal this recurring crooked fairytale, or a fictional nightmare of the future, was very inspiring.

SW: I see.

BW: I guess this has been a time of trying to mentally process what seemed like a hellish atmosphere. I am very thankful I was able to do so in a safe space. I am looking forward to a peaceful future for everyone.

Simon Wu

Simon Wu is a writer and curator based in Brooklyn. Photo by Thomas Blair.