“There are multiple sides to history, and perspectives are always erased, manipulated or suppressed from the official narrative. In her delicate, Victorian-looking embroideries, Briones Williams traces the hauntings of post-colonial and diasporic Philippine life. The base works are beautiful tapestries, once made from imported European needlepoint kits, popular in the postwar era and meant to emulate the tapestries found in the estates of European nobility. In “Specters,” Briones Williams completes this detailed wool work, weaving in her counter-narrative by including images of Indigenous people, animals and plants that had been excluded from those idealized representations. ”

— Elisa Carollo, Artists to Watch: Future Fair and 1-54’s Best Discoveries, The Obeserver

“Diane Briones Williams’s textiles at Official Welcome injects international flair into Western art history by rendering traditional scenes—landscapes, still lifes and genre paintings—in needlepoint, then adding elements that touch on the artist’s Filipino heritage. A farmer in a salakot (a traditional hat) looks to harvest rice from a pond where mallards take flight in an image that would have been at home in a 1990s Eddie Bauer catalog; a pair of indigenous Aetas stroll by a cozy, thatched cottage; a carabao lows in front of a historic windmill. These charming scenes show that championing one’s identity need not always be polemic. ”

— Brian P. Kelly, The Best Art at Frieze New York, Future Fair, NADA and Esther III, The Wall Street Journal

“Diane Williams uses found, discarded, salvaged materials in her sculptural assemblage works. While this yields tactile, assertively handmade, eccentric and enlivened objects, this approach’s more profound dimension is as both a conceptual and narrative strategy. That’s because her selection of those materials themselves are specifically chosen to describe and evoke the stories she is telling about forgotten histories — both personal to her and across a postcolonial diasporic globe. From the immigrant experience in new nations to buried invasions and trespasses against populations in their own lands, Williams is interested in weaving together — quite literally — the evidence. ”

— Shana Nys Dambrot, LA Weekly

“Throughout her oeuvre, Williams creates scattered “clues” to address the diasporic realities she engages. In this era dominated by the political demonization of women, immigrants and racial “minorities,” it is crucially important to consider the thoughtful responses to such issues articulated by savvy cultural workers like Diane Williams. ”

— Betty Ann Brown, Artillery

“Making full use of the gallery space, Williams divided it into each emotionally connected but significantly separate aspects of the exhibition. To journey through the space and Williams’ work is to journey into the heart of America itself, the immigration experience and the experience of a true artist. Here Williams paints, weaves, and defines the connections, both tenuous and grand, that make America far more American. We are not red, white and blue – we are a far more diverse and interesting color scheme.”

— Genie Davis, Diversions LA

“Each piece is a chaotic amalgamation of colors and textures, with a single word boldly woven in the center: “Immigrant,” “Fear,” “We,” or “Migrant.” Inspired by recent rallies and demonstrations, the pieces function as conceptual protest signs. Yet unlike the signs you’ll find in the streets, Williams’s pieces don’t explicitly declare an opinion or statement. Instead, she urges viewers to examine their own emotional responses to the singular woven words. “I don’t want to hit people on the head. I want to make people think about the work on their own,” says Williams, who came to the U.S. from the Philippines when she was 14.”

— Andrea Alonzo, Los Angeles Magazine