Didier William is mixed-media painter whose work focuses on constructions of blackness that include the nuances of diasporic identity, and his own experiences of immigrating to the United States from Haiti. His paintings undermine traditional aesthetic, racial, and gendered dichotomies in order to reimagine the personal and collective histories.
He earned a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2007 and an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2009. His work has been exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, FL; The Bronx Museum of Arts, NY; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA; Museum at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR. William was a 2018 recipient of the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2020 recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, and a 2023 recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant. He has taught at several institutions including Yale School of Art, Vassar College, Columbia University, UPenn, and SUNY Purchase. He is currently Assistant Professor of Expanded Print at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.