Art Exhibition Opening "Con Permiso" at Galería Ulisa

Galería Ulisa presents 'Con Permiso,' the first solo-exhibition of paintings by Florida boy/San Miguel de Allende grownup John Louis Williamson and his first-ever show outside the United States. If something stands in The Artist's way, He flattens it. He does not ask permission to go around. A True Artist helps the world by steamrolling all that shit into Mystical Truths. With the right set of eyes, the nebulous flush blob of road tar on the boulevard contains The Divine, The Percolating Consciousness Within Everything. Look all around you and you will see the objects, structures and signages of our safe, three-dimensional world now flattened into buttery lines, compressed into an unknowable slapstick by a one John Louis Williamson.

You have seen him in your cafes and parks around SMA, leveling images of our physical world into his tiny, deceptively simple but no less expansive vision. Listen to these Pure Shapes using their last flattened breath to wheeze a mystic truth out at you - a breakdown of language; somewhere beyond music; and most certainly a realm outside of what we might call "beauty." His rolling pin pen touches down, doesn't let up until its work is done and they're vibrating like Charles Birchfield's landscapes. Williamson sometimes cheekily refers to these ironed-out ink and acrylic shapes as his "neons." Like the manipulated illuminated glass tube art of Bruce Nauman or Keith Sonnier, Williamson's images are often made of two, twisting parallel lines (i.e. the tube) through which your eye (i.e. the electric current) must travel to illuminate the image. But what you see before you - say, a couple quacking ducks — is not that at all. In fact, it was once a ballerina's fully extended feet, balancing en pointe, now flattened to all hell in a diabolical rubber ducky yellow.

Like Marshall McLuhan's lightbulb meets Freddy Brice. Pure shape, pure media - but with enough gunk and grit on the surface to keep it dancing. Williamson bristles at naming his pieces. He'll never give you a hint at the inspo for these things. In fact, He'll go apoplectic over the mention of the ballerina's feet above. You see, he's like that. Beware. You'll be flattened next and your own mystic truths will come oozing out. May he? With your permission, of course.