Things That Are Not Meant to Work: An Interview of Folk Artist Justin Williams on The Occasion of His Solo Exhibition @ Roberts Projects LA

Justin Williams
Major Arcana, death watching over Jade (2024)
Acrylic, oil, raw pigment and gold pigment on canvas
77.25 x 84.75 in (196.2 x 215.3 cm)

interview by Chimera Mohammadi

In Justin Williams’s newest exhibition, Synonym, at Roberts Projects, waves of stories collide and crash across timelines, pouring onto the canvas in lush and decadent palettes. Williams creates wormholes between his ancestral memories and the present day. His work carves spaces, ranging from cozy to claustrophobic, in which dead and living strangers coexist in moments of imagined connection. Williams’ world is seen through a kaleidoscope of childhood trinkets, native flora, and mythologized fauna, from goats to dogs to horses. The artist collects moments and mementos alike to collage in these quiet yet fantastical dreamscapes, mining through Westernized memories of suburban Australia and hitting rich veins of ancestral Egyptian aesthetics. Williams embraces the awkwardness of outsider life, and his work embodies the comforting realization that even outsiders create their own exiled community. To mark the occasion of Synonym, he discusses stories and people, which echo throughout his life and strangers whose moments of grief have shaped his work. 

CHIMERA MOHAMMADI: I wanted to start off by asking what a day in your practice looks like.

JUSTIN WILLIAMS: I've tried to level out a lot. I got married, met [my wife] Jade, and I'm kind of trying to be normal in a weird way. It's been really productive, forcing myself to sort of start at 9:00 and work ’til dinnertime or whatever. And that might not be working – I might just sit on the couch and look at a painting and be like, “That looks ridiculous.” It's basically just get up, start making marks, and then from there, I'll kind of lose time.

MOHAMMADI: Your upcoming show at Roberts Projects, which looks gorgeous, is entitled Synonym. Is there a meaning behind that title for you?

WILLIAMS: Titles and names for paintings and things like this, it's a real collage, and an abstract process because I'm super dyslexic. So, I like words in the sense of how they sound, and it could be related to the show. It [Synonym] feels really circular. One painting might be about a weird transitional experience, or a story, or a secondhand story, or cults where I'm from, or these things. I tried to distill it into one thing, thinking that that's like what you're meant to do as an artist, but then I'd rather the painting inform what the show is. So, if one painting’s about this guy I knew growing up called Baba Desi, the Belgrave Wizard — and I love the fact that he was just this weird dude that worked at a post office, really suburban, normal, nice guy, who had a full meltdown and decided he wanted to carve sticks and be a wizard. And I'm like, What the fuck? Where did that point happen? This in-between moment. One painting would lend itself to that, and then the next painting might be a portrait of Jade and all my fears and feelings I didn’t even know I had about normality, coping with that through a painting. They're two very separate topics, and I was always like, Fuck, is it too schizophrenic or not cohesive to show altogether? But it all comes back to self-portraits. Like, Why am I interested in these things? So, it's one topic, but it's split off on a journey. 

Justin Williams
The Belgrave wizard-Baba Desi (2024)
Acrylic, oil and raw pigment on canvas
48 x 36 in (121.9 x 91.4 cm)

MOHAMMADI: Do you consider yourself a figure within this sort of mythology of the ordinary that you're creating in your work? Or are you an outside spectator looking in? What's your relationship to it? 

WILLIAMS: I feel like the ones that are more successful, it's like I'm a spectator. Sometimes I know the story, but I always want it to feel like this moment when something weird's happening at a park or a friend's house. It's like, you know what's going on, and you kind of walk past, but you can be drawn in, or you can not go into it, but you know you want to find out about it later. I like those ones where it's this banal jumping off point. And sometimes, when it's to do with stories, as opposed to things that I've experienced, they're really interesting. It's a lot of things through my grandma and her side through Alexandria, [Egypt] and the stories that just seem so normal, the way she says this shit. I made this painting of her, because she got bitten by a scorpion. There's two different types of scorpions. One will kill you and one won't. And she's like, “Oh, we made the nanny suck the poison out of the bite to make sure because it could have killed me or not killed me until the Bedouin doctors arrived.” And I'm like, “Fuck. You just put this poor lady's life in danger, and you got bit by a scorpion, which is crazy for me anyway.” But the way my mind is interpreting that is through a painting, and I've made that painting a couple of different times because I want to think of what my [grandma] Norma was thinking. Also, the experience of this probably 20-year-old lady that's not getting paid that well, sucking poison out of this young girl. Everyone was okay, and it's all fine, but it's this weird magical world.

MOHAMMADI: You've said that your grandparents’ migration from Egypt wasn't really discussed in your family, and it's a very prominent theme in your work. I was curious if the tension between your connection to that culture and your familial distance from that heritage has informed your work?

WILLIAMS: I've wanted to go and do residencies there [in Egypt], but you know when you listen to a song, say you're going through a gnarly breakup and there's a particular song that carries you through it, and you know that in ten years when you listen to it, you're going to think of Simon or some shit? It's precious. You won't put it on all the time. I want to be ready when I go to Egypt and spend time because I'm not a holiday painter either. You’ve got to understand, too, Australia in general, and especially where I was from, is an ancient civilization mixed with a really young culture. If you don't become a builder or a plumber, love surfing and football … it's just happy and dumb in a fucked up way. And I hated football, all that shit, so much that I really thought there was something wrong with me. And then, you mix in my mum's side, going to primary school with a fucking bowl of tabouli and some falafels, I'm like, Fuck that. Give me white bread and a sandwich so no one thinks I'm weird. My dad's side's full of Irish convicts. That’s where the name Williams comes from. And so, I was able to fit in really well with a group of normal Australian people, but secretly, I'm like, Fuck, I love art, and I want to know about Matisse. So, I think being an observer, an outsider, in these kinds of situations, is overall what I feel the work's about.  

MOHAMMADI: What does it mean to be an outsider? 

WILLIAMS: I think everyone is in a certain aspect of the word, but it's like, who fights? You feel more comfortable if you fit into a culture. It makes things seem right. So, if you're in between, or you're listening to what you know is actually legit to yourself, it's a weird friction. For a long time, I felt like I was pretending. Now I'm awkward and the paintings feel awkward and I'm okay with that. If you're at a dinner party or whatever, the people that are cool and boring, they won't really gravitate to the weird, overweight accountant-looking dude or whatever. But that's the guy you want to talk to. He's the best. I'm really fascinated by authenticity, even if it's wrong and misguided. You know, when you've got some cool people coming over, so you're not going to put on the music that you're actually listening to? I want to put on the music that I actually listen to and be pathetic. That's the feeling that I want. And that's okay.

MOHAMMADI: How does this outsider status or culture inform the creation of the fictional communities and moments of togetherness that take center stage in your work? 

WILLIAMS: It goes back to trusting in the work. It's like collage in a way. So, it might be two stories. A good example is one of the paintings, This trap I lay for you, about this guy, Neil. I used to cut up firewood for these bed and breakfast type things in this town called Sassafrass, which is a bit bougie in the hills for glamping kind of couples. Neil was the coolest looking dude. He had this big, massive beard, and this huge goat, which was kind of weird in this area. One day, I was dropping his firewood off, and he's out front, holding an Angora goat. It's this red color and it was dead. Its neck was sagging, and he's bawling out, crying. I was like, "Oh, you okay?" He was like, "Fucking dead. It's dead." The goat had eaten an old gasoline can. He’d had this goat for a really long time. I was like, “Oh, that's really sad. I'm sorry about your goat.” And he's like, “No, you don't understand. It was my late wife's goat. The goat's dead. My brother's dead.” So, I went over there thinking, I'll listen to the bullshit and whatever. But it fucking broke me because he was totally in love with this lady. The way he described it was this beautiful romance. They had an antique shop, which was why his house and backyard was just filled with shit. She died of cancer. The goat was hers because she wanted to make jumpers out of it. It was just this real sense of loss. That was the last straw, this dumb goat that he didn't even like. He hated the fucking goat. But it was a really sad, beautiful moment. I felt like I'd gone into a painting in a way, and he'd given me a gift in that sorrow too. I made that painting a lot of times. So I'll think, I'm going to make that painting from the perspective of Neil. And then aesthetically, it just comes down to something that looks better than something else. I'll have to get rid of Neil, and then another figure that’s in there might look like my dad. And then, the story is suddenly about two random stories coming together that don't mix. They don't make sense. But for me, I know exactly what's going on.

Justin Williams
This trap I lay for you (2024)
Acrylic, oil and raw pigment on canvas
76.5 x 86.75 in (194.3 x 220.3 cm)

MOHAMMADI:  I was interested in the prominence of nature in your work because you're a portrait artist and people are the focus of your work. But even your indoor pieces have these little lush pockets of flora and often a dog or a horse, and I was curious about what these natural motifs represent for you. 

WILLIAMS: Most of the work is from where I grew up. When people think of Australia, they'll think of beaches or desert, but where I'm from was prehistoric looking, in a way, and almost more indicative of a European forest. You've got these really old ferns. And my dad's a landscape gardener too, and he's like Google. You can be like, "What the fuck's this plant?" He'd be like, "It's a Pacificus Metallicus. It originates from South Africa and the Roman gypsies brought it in through the desert.” And all this kind of shit that you don't need to know. So, the plant-based stuff is pretty much where I'm from. And being in Santa Fe, the landscape is very different here. Sometimes I'll bring in some of that kind of stuff. Again, it's that collage type of thing. My cameras are filled with really boring things like a fence and a little path. I'll use these little things for reference, but I don't want too much information either. I like to give myself a little bit of an idea of how to do stuff and then not print them off really big and know how to fucking make it work. The shadows are all wrong. They're things that are not meant to work. It helps convey awkwardness within the work. But yeah, a lot of the plants just come from where I'm from. And growing up, too, [my grandparents], they're the first people I'd ever known that had indoor plants. I thought it was crazy. Plants inside the house! It blew my mind. I mean, now it's really normal, but that ’90s thing for Dad was potpourri and dried shit. So, these lush green things were like an art class and over the top. I fucking love it. Mum would be like, “Ah, it's disgusting. Trying to fit in.” 

MOHAMMADI: What role does your ancestry play in your life? Are ancestors guides, reservoirs of material, inspirations, missing persons?

WILLIAMS: As I got older I was like, Fuck, that's pathetic. I should have been embracing this shit and finding out more. It's been a real race for me. Now [my grandma] Norma's ninety-eight. She hasn't really got long to go, and she doesn't really make that much sense anymore. So, I'm just really trying to get as much information from her, and Mum as well, but Mum's like, “No, we're Australian.” That's it. Within my family too, Mum's like, “I don't know where this art shit came from.” It's apologetic almost. But I've accepted that's what I'm doing, and they've accepted, “Okay, if we don't hear from Justin for three months, that's fine.” But I think opening that door—because I was already painting and drawing and doing a lot of things before I really wanted to know where it came from—it helps me accept that artistic side of why I'm interested in these ideas. And because art wasn't really a thing. They just would have a really beautiful ceramic dish that they used for something. It has to be over the top and lavish and beautiful. And so, I liked these little objects, like a lamp with a camel attached to it or some shit. It's tacky and pitch almost, but every object had a weird, over-the-top kind of thing. It stood out a lot more because you're in this beige, suburban, claustrophobic environment. So you can tell, Oh, fuck, that's not from here. You can't get that down at 7-Eleven. That's from somewhere else. So I think it helped me to be like, Okay, it's in my blood, and I really want to make things. 

MOHAMMADI: I wanted to dig into the phrase ‘displaced timeline’ in your bio. In the press release, Synonym was “aiming to transcend sequential timelines.” Could you elaborate on the relationship to time in your work?

WILLIAMS: I think that touches on that collage aspect that I was talking about before. A good example would be, I made this painting last year. I was walking the dog to the dog park, and I had this moment. There's this red fence and there's snow everywhere. And I feel like a newborn giraffe walking in the snow. I'm also like, “Whoa, snow.” All the time. Jade's like, “Who cares? It's annoying.” But I had this moment of me walking through the snow, thinking about Oswaldo, my grandpa. He died never seeing snow. Oswaldo Died Never Seeing Snow was the title of the painting. I painted this big red fence with the snow, and then I painted my grandpa on the horse in the snow because it's like these two timelines. This guy's dead, long gone, and he would have never experienced snow because he came from Alexandria to Australia. He would have never had this human experience that I'm having right now. And the horse, because he was similar to the guy with the goat. That's why I think I really sort of meshed with that story, because he had a horse in a tiny backyard in Melbourne. He was like, "Well, fuck. I can have a horse. We could have him in Alexandria. I want to have a horse.” He'd walk his horse around. The council came in and made him get rid of it. I just like the idea of him in my timeline, the present time, walking past this thing.

Synonym is on view through March 9th at Roberts Projects LA, 442 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles.

Pointless Prophet: An Interview With Joe McKee On The Occasion Of His New Video Premiere

text by Summer Bowie

Joe McKee might have been everyone’s best friend in a past life. He’s full of charming witticisms, unexpected humor, moments of sober pontification, and there’s always a little light in his eyes that let’s you know he’s really listening. To hear him play music is a little bit like a secular religious experience. There’s no call to worship, but something about his sound is invariably transcendent. All of that thoughtful articulation in his discourse gets shrouded in a layered veil of sonic silk. It’s much like listening to a song in a language you don’t speak. You might be able to make out a word here and there, but you can never tell if your interpretation of the song is correct, or if you’ve just projected your own story onto it. McKee’s second solo album, An Australian Alien tells the true story of the artist’s journey through the loss of a best friend, the birth of a daughter, and the experience of processing a major life transition while being processed as an immigrant. Now five years an Angeleno, McKee is feeling much more at home geographically, but he’ll always be an alien of sorts: daringly vulnerable, abnormally modest (and not just for an Angeleno), and uniquely eloquent. I had the chance to ask Joe a few questions about the album and the pleasure of premiering his latest video—and maybe, just maybe, I’ll find myself in someone’s living room some day, enjoying a private performance by the alien himself.  

SUMMER BOWIE: I want to start by talking about the title of your new album, An Australian Alien. You’ve been in LA for about 5 years now. Do you still feel like an alien here in the States? Having been born in England, did you feel like an English alien in Australia? 

JOE MCKEE: I've always felt a little bit alien and I probably always will. I suppose that comes from being transplanted, as a ripe young chap, from the grey kingdom of Londonium to the outback of Australia. Everything was familiar but strangely different, like a bizarro world where Burger King is called Hungry Jacks and so on. I spoke the same language, but I was still the "other." I was probably quite self conscious of this growing up, but I learned to celebrate those subtle differences as I got older, I suppose. 

So, that 'alien' word was bandied about all over the application forms for my permanent residency to remain in the United States. An Australian Alien had a nice ring to it. It's musical, and it's playful. Prior to living in the US, I was vagabonding around Europe, sleeping on peoples couches, outstaying my welcome wherever I was performing. Always a tourist, even at home. I feel like I've finally found a place to reside and plant some roots in Los Angeles. This is mainly due to becoming a surprise father here.  

BOWIE: So you’ve always felt a bit extraterrestrial? Do you still feel extra-Angeleno? 

MCKEE: Living here in LA? Somewhat, but I feel more at home here than I have for a long time. The album was written primarily during that transition period, when I was still in this state of flux. Living in between. I'd alienated myself from my previous life by moving here, which was difficult and freeing at the same time. I could reinvent myself in a new place and shed all that old scabby skin that was weighing me down. So, I think I just feel more at home in my fresh flesh-suit.

BOWIE: This album was recorded in a number of different locations, including a cargo ship sailing the Pacific, friends’ homes, and a marijuana plantation in Northern California. Have you always been very nomadic while recording, or was this choice made specifically for this album? 

MCKEE: I definitely come from nomadic stock. My family has moved countries every generation for as far back as we can trace. We're all running from something! Or seeking something perhaps. One of the lovely things about making music is that it's weightless. You can do it all inside your noggin' while you're galavanting around the globe. You can hum a melody into your phone, or you can write a lyric on a napkin. I don't have to lug a roll of canvas and my paintbrushes around to create something. 

Having said that, recording this album was a particularly scattered process. I really didn't have a community in LA when I first arrived, nor did I have a cent to my name, so I had to snatch moments to write this record amongst all of the madness of becoming a father, moving to a new country, going through my Saturn's Return, yada yada yada. I relied on the generosity and kindness of strangers really.

BOWIE: If I’ve ever to known anyone to experience Saturn’s Return it would be you.  Do you subscribe to this theory, or have you gained any deeper perspective on the chaos of your late twenties? 

MCKEE: I think the Saturn's Return concept is a poetic way to understand any turmoil or life-shift. I think there’s probably some truth to it. I know what I went through was a mind-bending and ego-crushing experience. I was ruled by my ego in my twenties and I was increasingly dissatisfied with what was happening in my life, to be honest. Things had fragmented and life seemed like a labyrinth. So the universe came along and obliterated my concept of reality. It dealt me a cataclysmic hand. My best friend passed away and I was becoming a father with a virtual stranger on the other side of the world. The only thing you can do when the universe, or God, or whomever or whatever deals you that kind of hand is to relinquish control. To let go. This was a drawn-out process, like untangling a chunky dread-lock, but eventually I freed myself from my warped concept of myself that I'd created. Like I'd birthed a brand new slippery, shiny version of myself. Being a father helps you reconnect with a clean slate, a tabula rasa! It helps you get back to this place that you were before all the conditioning and confusion. Before the ego takes hold! Then you can start anew, but with the knowledge that you've accrued along the winding way. Y'know? 

BOWIE: You delivered your best friend’s eulogy on the same day that you met your daughter, Juniper. Did you start composing the album very long after? 

MCKEE: I began writing the album prior to this actually. I wrote a song on the album that is sung from the perspective of an unborn child in his mother's womb, before knowing I was becoming a father. Some weird prophecy. I keep having these prophetic dreams that are absolutely useless to me. Pointless prophecies. I'm a pointless prophet. 

Anyway, Juniper's birth and Matt's death were interconnected. He was also becoming a father at the time of his death and he actually introduced me to the mother of my child. My psychic friend called me recently and told me that I was Matt's mother in a past life. I don't know what that means, but I think I understand. 

So to answer your question, the album was written, before, during and after those events. So it tells the whole story in some warped and mangled way.

BOWIE: This is the second solo album you’ve released since parting ways with your former band, SNOWMAN. Would you say that your personal growth has been an analogue to your growth as a musician, or do you feel like music has acted as a sort of constant in life that helps you navigate the rest? 

MCKEE: That’s a good question. I suppose you might be onto something there. I suppose my music has become more like me in some sense. I’ve been following a thread for long enough that I'm in a place creatively that I don't know if anyone else is at. It's just a little nook somewhere that feels like home. Don't get me wrong, we're all just regurgitating our various influences, but at some point you get to a place where you've forgotten what they were, and what you are making feels like it belongs to you and only you. I'm a less frightened and significantly happier person than I was in my SNOWMAN daze. I don't think it's a coincidence that my music has become less frightening and more colorful as time has passed.

BOWIE: Do you find the composition process to be very fluid and organic, or does it tend to be very labor-intensive?  

MCKEE: It's both really. There is fluidity in the conception of an idea, but the execution is laborious. The most enjoyable part of making music is when an initial spark becomes a flame, and hey presto! a song is born. The rest is quite a painful process and it doesn't come naturally to me at all. It's work. The song "I'll Be Your Host" is about the birth of a creative idea, and the eventual letting-go of that creation. It no longer belongs to me after the initial burst. I'm not terribly interested in touring these songs live and playing them ad nauseum to vaguely interested drunk people because that seems so far removed from that "first spark" moment that I'm talking about. Perhaps I'll just play private one-on-one performances for a person in my garden. Then it still feels sacred or something. Perhaps I'm rambling.

BOWIE: Your lyrics and song titles have a certain cryptic vulnerability to them. Is this intentional?  

MCKEE: hmmm... It's inherent, I'm not sure it's intentional. It sounds utterly trite but music really is a form of catharsis for me.... but I'm not particularly fond of that confessional style of songwriting, so there's always a veil of some sort. I have to wrap metaphor in cataphor in metaphor to feel as though I'm saying anything in a way that feels unique or unburdensome. Is that a word? I don't want to burden people with my crap. I want to sort through it, turn it into something magical and share that, y'know. It's digestion! Songwriting (or creation in any form) is like a digestive process. The final release is the turd that I've presented to you! All the garbage that I need to release! Flushing it into the world. Magical crap. Perhaps childbirth is a nicer analogy. 

BOWIE: “A Yolk He’d Never Seen” is about people getting their comeuppance and feeling the karmic consequence of behaving like a jerk. Can you elaborate on that? 

MCKEE: Yeah that was the first song I wrote for this record. I was living a life of sin! I was genuinely trying to do things purely for myself even if they hurt other people. I made a conscious decision to do this. Madness! Of course the universe dealt me the hand that it did, and I learned my lesson. So that song is about cosmic/karmic repercussions. I won't go into too much detail, but I hurt someone, and in turn, I was hurt. Egg all over my face. 

BOWIE: Can you talk a bit about the first track you released, “I Want to Be Your Wife,” and its significance to the album? 

MCKEE: I sung it from the perspective of a woman in an unhappy marriage. I was a stay-at-home dad in a peculiar marital situation, but really it's based on every relationship I've been in and that crippling fear of losing oneself to another person. Terrifying stuff. It's a funny song, you should listen to the lyrics. You devote so much to these beings (songs/children), and at some point they have to leave the nest, and you're all alone again! Then you die. 

BOWIE: Let’s talk about your use of reverb. How long have you been experimenting with the effect and do you remember what inspired you to develop this signature? 

MCKEE: Oh yeah, it's another veil, like the cryptic lyrics, it's a way for me to hide behind something. It's just like clothing for me; it feels natural to wear a suit made of reverb. I'd like to thread a sound suit together and wear it, but sound is still invisible, so it'd only ever be a representation of a sound. But imagine that! Joe McKee and his Technicolor Reverb Tracksuit. It'd be like the Emperor's new clothes. I'd be wandering around in my disgusting naked body. People would say, "Put some goddamn clothes on you pallid creep!" and I'd simply reply, "Oh, you can't see the reverb? whats wrong with you? 

BOWIE: Can we expect any more music videos for the album? 

MCKEE: Yeah, one more!

BOWIE: Performances? 

MCKEE: In some capacity. Not in bars though. It just doesn't really make sense for these songs to compete with the alcohol industry. I don't want to be at battle. Being on stage just feeds into this ego-worship thing that I don't think is very healthy for me. So If I play, I'll play on the floor, eye-to-eye and you can have a cup of tea. And you'll bloody well enjoy it.

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