Apart from being inspired by sweeping geometric form, flat saturated colour, and the overlapping elements that he is known for, William T. Williams greatly values listening to jazz as an inspiration in the studio for producing paintings.
Examples of his large imposing paintings include Elbert Jackson L.A.M.F. Part II (1969), Truckin (1969), 1940 (1970), Trane Meets Jug (1970–1971), Up Balls (1971), and Eastern Star (1971).
Williams works in studios in both Connecticut and New York, and has several styles of painting. In his Connecticut studio, the paintings tend to be more industrial, with curved geometry and diamond shapes as described above; in New York, the works are more arboreal, organic, and manual. They are less chromatically intense and more tonally subdued, using thick vertical bands compositionally and emphasising rows of pictographic doodles—patterned ‘expressive’ textures in a shallow space. An example is Tale for Shango (1978). In many others, like Blues Labyrinth (1991), Harlem Nights (1999), or Spring Lake (1988–2008), the wider tactile marks look like cracked bark.
Some works, like Indian Summer (1973), Redfern (1973–1974), or Batman (1979), are very delicate, being rigorously monochromatic, with tonally manipulated, bush-daubing patterns.
Much later paintings, like Last Voice (2007), Let Me Know (2017), and Evidence (2016), emphasise the pictographic not multiplied in rows or grids, but rather as dominant solo motifs.
