William Wilkins

William Wilkins’ painting technique is unusual and is based upon dots of colour; in the 19th century it was referred to as ‘pointillisme’. He is interested in using marks or ‘pointes’ for their lack of ‘calligraphic character’. Without preparatory lines or drawing, he builds his paintings upon the pure white ground of canvas, through ‘notes of colour, tone and luminosity’. He is preoccupied with light and luminosity and how the eye reads the density and mutability of brushstrokes as they become clustered together. This requires close observation, concentration and a certain fastidiousness.

Through this time-consuming process, William Wilkins sets himself visually challenging and thought-provoking subject matters, such as landscapes and compositions of trees and walls in his own garden, still lives that include finely-made studio ceramics, buildings and architecture with complex evidence of history and occupation, and studio paintings with the disconcerting inclusion of figures or furniture. Across a varied body of work, he creates ‘the vibrant uncertainty of human interaction with the environment’. Throughout William Wilkins challenges us to go out and look at the world around us, afresh.


Recent Paintings

Contemporary pointillism painting, Venice from Murano

View all recent paintings by William Wilkins:


Recent Paintings »

Contemporary pointillism painting, Still Life

Contemporary pointillism painting, Model with Angel of the Annunciation, 2021

Paintings on this website


The paintings displayed on this website range in price from £2,500 - £ 25,000. Prices on application depending on availability. If you are interested in purchasing a painting or drawing please make contact with William Wilkins:

'There is something very original in his work - a purity of tone that sets his paintings apart from anything else that they may seem at first glance to resemble. His eye is utterly flawless in its analysis of the light that forms his principal subject matter, and his hand is unfaltering in rendering it. The result is a series of small pictures that add up to a triumph of the painter's art.' Hilton Kramer, The New York Times



Quote:

'The paintings of William Wilkins are some of the most beautiful things that I have seen that have been made during my lifetime. This is not just a matter of making a painting of something that is beautiful to start with. That would not work at all. What he has done, which as far as I know is unlike what any other artist has been doing, is to slowly construct out of patches a kind of coloured veil or cloud.' - David Fraser Jenkins 2011

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William Wilkins painting of Welsh Landscape

Paintings

The paintings of William Wilkins.

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William Wilkins Drawings

Drawings

Drawings of William Wilkins.

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Biography

After completing his formal training William Wilkins taught and painted for seven years before making a radical change of direction in the late 60's. At this point he abandoned the abstract work on which he had been engaged and embarked on a rigorous regime of drawing, figure, still life and landscape, which lasted for five years....

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Pointillism

Contemporary pointillism painting, Still Life

Pointillism (pointillisme) is a very rarely used technique, developed by Georges Seurat in the 19th Century. It was experimented with by artists as different as Pisarro and Van Gogh and continued to be used, more or less following his principles, by a number of followers, such as Signac. But the use that William Wilkins makes of it has always favoured pointillism for its abstract surface and potential for rigorous precision rather than for the colour theories or palette.

Wilkins practise of pointillism is focused on the close observation of colour, rather than the application of principles, and whereas classic pointillism uses opaque colour, Wilkins' uses the 'pointe' to explore the poles of opacity and luminosity.


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Exhibitions

By William Wilkins

Aberglasney Gardens

Aberglasney Gardens

Allusion and Luminosity. A Retrospective Exhibition at Aberglasney Gardens.
May 2024
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Fine Art Society London

The Fine Art Society

'Preview' 20th Century Exhibition at The Fine Art Society, London, May/June 2022.
The Fine Art Society

Martin Tinney Gallery

Martin Tinney Gallery

Recent Works at Martin Tinney Gallery, Cardiff, 2022.
Martin Tinney Gallery