William Ishmael: Wholeness and Fragmentation

William Ishmael has been an artist for the last 30 years, beginning with watercolor landscapes and progressing to large abstract works and art installations utilizing latex paint, sand,  active rusting on steel plates, organic materials, and the natural elements of the weather to achieve the weathered, multilayered effects on many of his works.  

All of the works are an effort to convey that sense of the wholeness being broken up into fragments… fragments which are beautiful in their own right, but can readily be seen in a larger context, and have greater meaning as a result. 

The steel plates, the mirrored surfaces, as well as the sets of smaller canvases constituting a larger picture all intended to raise the awareness of this thesis in the viewers mind.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.