Paul William

By day Paul is a construction project manager with a background in art and architecture, who spends his days working on building projects in the Boston area. Through this process it's almost a given that he gets to know a building intimately after working on it every day for months (or years) at a time. But even more influential is living and working in Boston which enables him to see the city over time, in all seasons, weather, and times of day. Paul says, "if a motif catches eye I often go back to places numerous times to see various conditions that will allow me to capture the feeling that I would like to communicate. I’ve always valued the ability of observation."

Art, architecture, and building have always been a part of who he is. Many of Paul's paintings, architectural and otherwise, are works that came about after a period of time spent painting en plein air. He likes to consider himself a direct observational painter (saying his painting heroes are George Nick and Christopher Chippendale), but several winters ago he fell and fractured his knee cap, limiting him to the studio rather than painting outdoors. During this time he spent this time painting larger works over the course of days and weeks rather than a spurt of an hour or two en plein air. The silver lining to the injury was that the work in the studio began to develop, the series grew, and a body of work emerged.

The intent of Paul's work is to express the temporal in oil paint as a practice of depicting the every-day. The subjects often overlooked as being part of the fabric of daily life, have inherently interesting qualities that are revealed through time and marksmanship. He hopes the use of values and contrast allow the view to appreciate the composition as a motif rather than a reproduction of reality.