West Hollywood Magazine

*Premier Issue, Fall 2014                                                                                                                               Pages 94 & 95

*excerpts from the original article by Joshua Stuart

In May ways, Todd Williamson, who grew up in Cullman with a passion for music and theatre, has made a much longer journey from that small Southern town.  Even as a young man he dabbled in the arts, but it wasn't until around 1990, after he had moved to LS that he embarked on a serious and successful career as a painter whose work has been on show in Japan, China, Italy, Germany, Korea, and Spain as well as the United States.

Most of his contemporary work is characterized by lines, usually horizontal but sometimes  vertical, sometimes waving and sometimes straight.

The lines control the emotion of the work and they give it a framework."  Williamson said.  "Because of my musical background, its like a staff of music, and I just put my notes on it."
Indeed, a review notes the musical allusions in Williamson's art.  "at the epicenter of Todd Williamson's canvas there is an unmentioned but imagined perfect line, representing the similarity, the human-ness in us all, from which a kinetic, emotional pulse resonates," wrote Ken General of Houston's Wade Wilson Art.  "This musical pulse, created from Williamson's use of color, texture, line, and space, appeals to and resonates with the reflective viewer, demanding a unique emotional response, just as music would to the ear."

In addition to creating art, Williamson promotes it in his role as an arts commissioner for the city of West Hollywood and as a member of the board of directors for the National Aids Monument to be erected in West Hollywood Park in 2016.  

While his creativity has taken him around the world, Williamson seems most at home in his bungalow in West Hollywood an din the small studio in the back yard, where he had to rip a large opening into the wall to extract some of his more monumental works.  That's where he works from morning until late afternoon, letting the creative spirit nurtured in his Cullman childhood loose on a canvas that is likely to find its way around the world.