William's Statement of Purpose: "I explore the relationship between human emotions and the natural environment. These parallel perspectives are the basis for my landscapes channeled onto canvas. Often, it's my perception that I feel compelled to paint a specific landscape. These feelings inspire me to capture honest moments, showing others a glimpse of what's beneath the surface."
Evoking human emotion and relationship with the natural world seems present in William’s quiet, calm, and intimate pieces, but there is something else as well. The majority of his canvas’ surfaces are photorealistic, or at least realistic, imagery while the bottom of many transforms and drips into a pure and raw painted area. He allows the image to fade into a loose and impressionistic abstraction of running paint and vigorous brushstrokes.
The juxtaposition of realism and a glimpse into the process of painting, speaks more to the act of painting and the act of representing the natural worldsthrough art rather than human emotions towards the natural environment. It reminds us that we are looking at a painting, bidding the question of why; why a painting of the natural world; why paint it at all? It is a different way of approaching the subject than taking a photograph or making a sculpture. No, this is a painting, and someone has painted it, someone has been inspired and driven to paint the in, the outs, and everything in between. This, the painter's intimate relationship with his subject, the natural environment, is what speaks most to me about William's work. It is not the human emotion to the natural world, but the artists, William's.
