Los-Angeles based artist Michael Williams (b. 1978, Doylestown, Pennsylvania) addresses and questions the complexities and dualities inherent to the process of painting  through an incisive, singular approach to artmaking. Williams’s practice calls attention to the tensions between physical mark making and the digital sphere, resulting in works that explore concepts ranging from painting and identity to the creative process itself. The vivid Raison Noir (2019) is a recent example from Williams’s ongoing series of puzzle paintings. For these works, Williams employs a multi-step process of drawing, cutting, and rerendering an image. The resulting tableau simultaneously subverts and references the concept of “the original.” Resisting fixed perspective but slyly acknowledging space, Williams presents the viewer with a series of both formal and conceptual conundrums.