Amber Williams-King is a multi-disciplinary artist working in a variety of mediums including photography, collage, printmaking and animation and sees mixed media as a way of acknowledging the multiplicity of being. Their self-taught practice seeks to challenge notions of a monolithic Black experience; exploring various intersections of identity. Much of Amber’s work starts from a deeply intimate place, and from their experiences as a Black queer femme living with mental illness. To a world that questions the validity of this existence, Amber replies ‘I exist through my artistic envisioning.’

The project that Amber will produce while in residency, tentatively titled ‘dispatches from the underground’, will use stop motion animation techniques, rotoscoping and mixed media to create a short abstract visualization of a Depressive episode. By making links to chemical imbalances and broader issues of oppression and intergenerational trauma, Amber seeks to acknowledge connections between anti-blackness, dehumanization, and disability.

TAIS programming is presented with the support of the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts