William Wright (b.1971, United Kingdom) is a painter and printmaker who meticulously explores and archives the objects that populate his studio and home. From fruit to flowers, open windows to stubbed cigarettes, his chosen subjects map a steady record of observation, the passing of time. Each chosen item is distilled down to its inherent objecthood through an economy of line and solidity. His compositions are layered through delicate deliberations; a texture of accretion underlines the studious rigour at the heart of Wright’s dense work.

Wright explores how memory shifts to imagination, observation into association. And so the phrasing of an object becomes accented by the union of the canon: a skull here, a timepiece there, the language of the domestic bleeding into art historical trope and tradition. As subjects are revisited, they accumulate additional character, furnishing them with an air of friendly familiarity. Wright’s paintings elevate the sublunary into the realm of the art historical collective consciousness, drawing a continuum between painting of the past and a still life of the present.

William Wright lives and works in London, UK. He studied at Leeds Metropolitan University and has had solo exhibitions at Sea View Gallery, Los Angeles; Lyndsey Ingram, London and Galerie Ariane C-Y, Paris. Wright held his inaugural solo exhibition at Josh Lilley in November 2024 and the gallery will present new paintings and works on paper at Art Basel Hong Kong in March.