William Masters
Hi I’m William Masters, a painter whose works incorporate both abstract and figurative elements to reflect on how life’s contradictions provide rather than obscure meaning. I’m interested in the productive capacity of sitting within the tension, negotiations and uncertainties contradictions create. These coexisting opposites are everywhere you look: the natural and the artificial, the precise and the approximate, the uniform and the diverse, and the continual give and take of change.
I recently finished a yearlong residency called Project 14C in the Powerhouse Arts District in Jersey City. In 2026, I was awarded the Art on the Block NYC Art and Engagement Fellowship, a community-engaged program supporting professional development and public-facing work. I completed the Advanced Painting Intensive at Columbia University in 2025 and earned my BFA in Painting from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis (2023), where I was awarded the Eda L. and Clarence C. Cushing Memorial Prize for excellence in painting.
My training also includes residencies at Vermont Studio Center, the New York Academy of Art, and South Porch Artists Residency, as well as study at the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence and the Art Students League of New York.
Exhibitions include the LeRoy Neiman Gallery in NYC (2025); 150 Bay Artists Group Exhibition | Art Fair 14C (Jersey City) (2025); the 61st Annual Juried Competition at the Masur Museum of Art (2024); the New York Academy of Art (2024) and several juried shows with the Maryland Federation of Art, including Reflecting (main gallery) (2025), Light and Shadow (Curve Gallery) (2025), and Strokes of Genius (Circle Gallery) (2024). My work has also been featured in Symphony of Colors at the Martha Spak Gallery, Dove in the Bunker and What is WARGAP, TARGAP at the Des Lee Gallery in St. Louis and is on permanent display at Weill-Cornell Medical Center in New York City.
