Evette Williams is a 3D mixed-media studio artist. She earned a BFA and a degree in Art History from Towson University and is currently pursuing an MFA at George Washington University. Williams’ artistic practice began with the construction of functional pottery, but over time, sculpture emerged as the primary medium, becoming the focus of her work.
Her art frequently explores motifs related to women, examining the harsh experiences and traumas they have endured throughout history and in contemporary society. Shock value plays a critical role in her practice, serving as a means to capture the viewer’s attention and confront societal issues that are often overlooked or dismissed. Through a combination of form, material, and content, Williams creates works that are both visually arresting and conceptually grotesque, encouraging reflection on gender, power, and the complex realities of women’s lives.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Betrayed by Birth (2024)
The overturning of Roe v. Wade has profoundly affected many women and mothers in America, and influenced my series SHEFORGOES It has not only forced unwanted pregnancies but also created a shift in which it can feel as though medical care prioritizes the unborn child over the mother. Motherhood is a deeply personal and meaningful experience, one that some women choose, but it must remain a choice. It should be an experience entered freely, and one in which the mother is cared for and valued just as much as the child.
Betrayed by Birth reflects the emotional and physical anxieties that many women and future mothers are experiencing in America today, particularly the fear that their bodies are not being fully protected or respected during pregnancy. The work is a sculpted, brutally torn ceramic uterus, symbolizing vulnerability, pain, and loss of autonomy. Within it sits a perfectly formed newborn, creating a stark contrast that highlights the tension between idealized motherhood and the lived realities many women face.
Motherhood can be one of the most powerful experiences in a woman’s life. But if women choose this path, they deserve to feel safe, supported, and recognized, not reduced to a body or a function, but respected as whole human beings.
Strangled by Law (2025)
Another work in my SHEFORGOES series, Strangled by Law, is a ceramic sculpture that confronts the growing tension between motherhood, bodily autonomy, and government control. In recent years, particularly following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, laws and political movements have expanded governmental influence over women’s bodies. This shift has created a suffocating sense of pressure, especially for mothers and future mothers, who may feel that their most intimate choices are no longer fully their own.
This piece explores how that pressure intersects directly with motherhood. The sculpture depicts breasts, forms that can be read as nurturing, life-giving, and in the act or potential of breastfeeding, being tightly constricted by handcuffs. What should represent nourishment, connection, and the bond between mother and child instead becomes an image of tension and restraint.
The breasts are suspended by a ribbon, allowing the sculpture to hang on the wall like a trophy. This presentation echoes the way hunting trophies are displayed, drawing a parallel to the objectification and dehumanization of women’s bodies. In this context, the maternal body is no longer honored but instead captured, controlled, and exhibited, stripped of agency and reduced to function.
