For myself, I find essential painting to be confrontational, not anesthetizing. It brings you to yourself. It is the opposite of escapism. The only “meaning” of painting is that we’re alive. Aware of this reality, we are one-hundred-percent responsible for the attendant introspective awe that accompanies it. What other meaning is required beyond the fact of your existence?

LORRAINE WILLIAMS was born in Queens, New York, in 1964. Beginning making art at an early age, Ms. Williams attended the High School of Art & Design (1980) and the School of Visual Arts (1984), both in New York City. She worked for thirteen years as a commercial art director, illustrator, and graphic designer before turning her attention full-time to painting. Having recently added printmaking to her creative endeavors, her prints are represented by VanDeb Editions in NYC, and are included in the permanent collection of the Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, in Princeton, NJ. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.