If you were asked to provide a glimpse into your life, what would you show? What traces of your persona would be included? Margaux Williamson presents her version in her exhibition Shoes, books, hands, buildings, and cars currently on view at MOCA.
Installation view of Margaux Williamson, Shoes, books, hands, buildings, and cars, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
The exhibition space was bustling, filled with people in pairs and families with children. The images are substantial in size, like doorways, leading into the scenes depicted. The main space of the gallery, showing three large paintings, was buzzing with the energy of the visitors. Particularly captivating is Books and Pictures (2023). Like several of the pieces in the exhibition, it contains domestic elements. These often include chairs, mirrors, stoneware, or blankets and, in this case, stacks upon stacks of books. They seem as familiar as haphazard merchandise displays in used bookstores. The glow from a lamp carefully illuminates the space. The light is weak but still enough to distinguish the subjects in full. Shadow falls upon various books towards the base of the painting.
Margaux Williamson, Books and Pictures, 2023, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches. Photo: Rashana Youtzy
Williamson’s deft use of light is evident throughout her work; be it naturally mottled sunlight or the blue tint from a screen as seen in Living Room with Red Carpet (2024). This interior contains an upholstered chair on an ornate crimson rug with the glow of a laptop. In the background, there are several framed artworks along the wall. The sense of perspective is slightly muddled, showing how we register visuals at the periphery. The cool tones of the navy-striped armchair and the grey hue of the wooden cabinet are balanced by an otherwise warm palette. Most of the work in the exhibition maintain a warm palette, often using yellow undertones as opposed to blue.
Margaux Williamson, Living Room with Red Carpet, 2024, oil on canvas, 70 x 100 inches. Photo: Rashana Youtzy
The yellow undertones are also apparent in streaks of abalone-grey within Museum (2025). Structures like the columns at MOCA are replicated along with the sheen of the concrete floor. Situated at the approximate center of the exhibition, it functions as its core. Viewers sitting on the bench near the painting are taking a moment looking at the work—appreciating ‘the museum within the museum.’ Another aspect to note is the vacancy depicted in the image. I witness a family contemplating this piece, and in this way the painting becomes a collective encounter.
Margaux Williamson, Museum, 2025 oil on canvas, 70 x 100 inches. Photo: Rashana Youtzy
Williamson brings the same value of detail to the smaller images, like Flowers and Cup (2024). A paper cup is discarded in a green area where it holds its rigidity, seemingly about to roll further along the sidewalk. As the petals of the flowers wilt and fall, the biodegradable cup, too, will lose its form—possibly taking on the folds of a flower in a crumpled state.
Margaux Williamson, Flowers and Cup, 2024. oil on canvas, 18 x 18 inches. Photo: Rashana Youtzy
This realistic display of the minute details of life contrasts with the more surreal compositions as seen in River and Alleyway (2025). Here we move away from the domestic, approaching more commercial and urban spaces. Williamson complicates the setting by incorporating the natural spaces we so often seek amid concrete. Sweeping across the canvas is a river flowing, boardered by rocks and stones that appear to blend into the grey of the background building. The river is superimposed over the shadow of street signs and an industrial door, a fragment of a dream dappled with sunlight. While this depiction is not something we see in our daily life, perhaps it is a representation of our desire to combine the natural and urban settings of our world.
Margaux Williamson, River and Alleyway, 2025. oil on canvas, 63 x 90 inches. Photo: Rashana Youtzy
Williamson’s Shoes, books, hands, buildings, and cars holds a mirror up to our lives. The exhibition can very much remind visitors of the little moments in life: rolling out of bed, popping into a bookstore, a visit to the museum followed by a walk by streetlight on the way home. An unmade bed, a chair just pulled away from a table, the sight of a pepper mill sitting on a kitchen shelf. Are these details that make a home? A life? Having these moments painted and, in a way, romanticized, prompts appreciation for the experiences one might otherwise overlook.
Rashana Youtzy
*Exhibition information: Margaux Williamson, Shoes, books, hands, buildings, and cars, April 17 – August 3, 2025, Museum of Contemporary Art, 158 Sterling Rd, Toronto. Museum hours: Wed – Thu & Sat – Sun 11 am – 6 pm; Fri 11 am – 9 pm.