statement

This is a portrait of my friend, the singer/songwriter Ana Silvera. Ana's music immediately appealed to my interest in grandiose story telling. Described by London Time Out as "pure poetry," her songs are inspired by everything from a starlet in war-torn Paris to a biblical and murderous Salome, an Irish choirboy and a dead poet's wife.

I tried to create a composition that conveys a sense of otherworldliness through the subtle distortion of perspective, yet also evokes a sense of nostalgia for European history and the English appetite for both the ironic and macabre.

The sense of both the miraculous and uncanny that often pervades my work is something that has developed in sympathy with the rich history of representational drawing and painting.  Traditional forms of representation seem all the more miraculous in the face of modern technologies for their very simplicity of approach, in contrast with the complexity of the resulting images.  

bio

born:1980, Norwich, England

education:

Chelsea College of Art and Design, Pg Dip Fine Art, 2010
Central St Martins College of Art & Design, BA (Hons) Fine Art, 2003
Norwich School of Art and Design, Foundation Diploma, 2000                                      

selected awards/honors

Research Grant, Alec van Berchem Trust, 2009
Artist-In Residence, Anteros Arts Centre, 2009
Staff Award, presented in acknowledgement of the artist's contribution as a demonstrator to the College's Drawing Workshop, Norwich University College of the Arts, 2008
Artist-In Residence, Aberdeen Arts Centre, 2007

selected publications

Celeste Prize 2009, Ed. Steven Music, Associazione Culturale L'Albero Celeste, Italy
"Introducing Will Teather," Wave Magazine, November 2009
"Magical-realist painter makes himself at home in Norfolk," Artists & Illustrators, The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd, UK, p, 8, February 2009
"Cultural Explosion," East Magazine, East Publishing, UK, p. 60 - 61, August 2008

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Artist-in-Residence Exhibition, Anteros Arts Centre, Bergh Apton, Norfolk, UK, 2009
Sephaville, portraits & early works, Norwich Playhouse Gallery, Norwich, Norfolk, UK, 2008
Early works, Window Galleries, Elm Hill, Norwich, Norfolk, UK, 2008
Artist-in-Residence Exhibition, Aberdeen Arts Centre, Aberdeen, UK, 2007

selected group shows

Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London, 2010
Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn Exhibitions, Colomb Art, Marylebone, London, 2009 - 2010
New Year Exhibition, Blackheath Gallery, London, 2010
Cork Street Open Exhibition, The Gallery in Cork Street, London, UK, 2008 & 2009