Ann Marie Williams is an award winning fine artist and illustrator residing in Reston, VA. A graduate of Howard University in Washington, DC, she has worked as a graphic designer, publications manager and art director. Ann has received numerous design awards, and judged several national design competitions. She has also taught graphic design at The American University School of Communications. Even though
she has been working as an art director for several years, she
is serious and passionate about fine art and painting.

Williams is a  member of the Greater Reston Art Center (GRACE), Black Artists of DC, and The Women’s Art Museum
in Washington, DC.

 
A recent accomplishment was winning the 2006 National Cherry Blossom Festival® Art Contest. Her painting was among 70 submissions received for consideration for the festival. Entries
were sent in from all over the nation and from around the world, including Japan and the Netherlands. She also won third place in a national painting competition sponsored by Daimler/Chrysler Corporation in 1999.

Ann has illustrated four children’s books. (Click here to see samples of Ann's illustrations) She is Vice President on the Board of Directors for MTC Art Studios, a school for gifted and talented art students in Bowie, Md.

She takes every advantage to study and improve the quality of her work by taking classes at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria VA. In studying abstraction, and independent study of the Washington color field school of painting, she has evolved from the realistic tradition of painting to a more modern form of abstraction. All of the formal training has been channeled into one direction. The objective of which is a style of painting that has emerged into a series of paintings that burst with bright and exhilarating colors. Her paintings are very expressive and incorporate acrylics, collage, oil pastel or crayons to achieve varied textures. She uses a very strong sense of color, line and movement.

Williams states, “My work has been compared to that of Ghanaian artists. I am exploring the theory of ancestral memory
in my painting. Ancestral memory is the role of memory and communication in overlapping generations, whether conscious
or unconscious. This study can be seen in my use of colors, line, dry brush techniques and collage.

Read more about Ann and her work at ElanArticle.pdf.