Bellevue Arts Museum features unsettling artist Robert Williams this weekend

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Come see a jockey riding his own tongue! Or a bug-eyed lobster with a bowler holding a grenade! Maybe a giant wheel of teeth? All of the above are at the soon-to-open Robert Williams exhibition at Bellevue Arts Museum.

"Robert worked as a cartoonist, as a comic book artist? So there's a gag in each one. But as soon as you get past the gag, you kinda get the surreal weirdness in it," says Ben Heywood, BAM's Executive Director, and Chief Curator.

He says their new show is all about you. "I don't think an audience is interested in me telling them what to think about stuff. What they're interested in is coming in and making up their own minds?"

So when you see a 12-foot-tall wheel made of teeth, you get to decide what it is or does or means. Williams' art is unsettling by design. "The works are discomforting. So they take you out of the regular world and put you somewhere else. And then you have to work your way back from where he's placed you as the viewer."

The wheel is one of two sculptures here, along with the tongue-riding jockey. There are also oil paintings, pencil and ink drawings, and mixed-media work. The variety is perfect for the mission of BAM, as they are intentionally Bellevue ARTS, not Bellevue ART Museum. "Really fits within the border between art and craft and design in a way you really can't work out what it is?"

It is the first time Williams' work is on display in the area in 25 years. "We have a number of paintings in this show that have never been shown before because he's only just finished them."

Heywood says the works take us wherever we let them take us. And while they are phantasmagorical and fun, they are more layered than simple cartoons. "They also hide an underlying sadness." The more you look, the more you see.

"Robert Williams: The Father of Exponential Imagination " opens Friday and runs through March 8. A preview party is open to the public on Thursday from 6-9p.

And Friday from 7-9p, the artist will be on hand for a screening of the documentary "Robert Williams Mr. Bitchin'," which explores Williams' creativity and life. It includes a special Q&A with Robert himself and filmmaker Nancye Ferguson.