Upstairs at Alma Gallery, artist Nathaniel Williams will present several of his most recent paintings. Nathaniel is something of a nomadic artist, viewing Utah’s cultural landscape from the outside in. This perspective shapes his work in a distinctly Hopperesque fashion—but rather than people, he specializes in “brooding portraits of houses, parking lots, gas stations, and anything else people don’t fastidiously maintain.”

The title Unhistoric Acts is drawn from George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871). The novel’s main character, Dorothea Brooke, is described as having an “incalculably diffusive” effect on the people around her. Her actions are “unhistoric” and largely unnoticed by the world, but they are still full of meaning.

In my paintings, I invite viewers to reflect on daily moments that are integral to life but rarely celebrated in the historic sense. Through gestural marks, I translate lived experience, reaching toward the everyday — those small, intimate spaces where I encounter the world. My primary subjects include the textures of domestic life, the interactions between family and friends, and the shifting light and landscapes that surround these environments.

Opening Reception Sept 5th, 6-9pm