Nebraska artist Sandra Williams’ work seeks to facilitate social change by revealing a community’s unique identity, often in partnership with others. Her art can be experienced as finely detailed paper cuts, imaginative paintings or sweeping murals.
Within these forms, her work interweaves interest in her Indigenous Peruvian roots, a love of animals, and the friction that results when humans and the natural world collide, among other themes.
As an associate professor of art, she may be best recognized, at least recently, for her classes in street art, a rare offering at universities. Street art embraces murals, graffiti and other forms, both sanctioned and unsanctioned.
“These impromptu works create opportunities for people to come together,” Williams said. “During a period when we’re spending more time with screens than with each other, forms of street art, like memorial walls, become meaningful for people.”
They can also beautify. Williams and her students are creating murals to help revitalize rural Nebraska towns. In summer 2024, she taught a class in which the students created an outdoor mural for a car dealership in Beatrice, Nebraska. In the process, they learned both artistic and practical aspects, such as budgeting.
“I see muralism as an opportunity for conversations about our history and land acknowledgement and things, both positive and negative, that have happened across the state,” Williams said.
Farther from home, during a trip to northern Peru, Williams considered the transitional region where the rainforest meets the Andes. Since then, explorations into colonialism, environmental issues, endangered species and other cultural abrasions inform her work.
Currently, Williams has several projects in mind, including a mural featuring flowers native to the countries from which people have immigrated to Nebraska planned for 2026 in Alliance, Nebraska. She’s also collaborating on a public art piece for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Williams’ work can be found in museums or on walls from Peru to Key West to Oregon and many points in between.
Additional content
- News release: Nebraska students design, paint mural at Beatrice business
- News release: Williams transforms her passions into art, community outreach
Students in Sandra Williams’ ARTS 398 class painted a mural at a Beatrice, Nebraska, car dealership.