With my senses, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
and in the ponds broken off from the sky
my feeling sinks, as if standing on fishes.
– Rainer Maria Rilke, “Moving Forward”

Sea View is pleased to present Standing on Fishes, a solo exhibition by English artist, William Wright (b. 1971, United Kingdom).

Spanning over a year of work, Wright’s debut exhibition at Sea View provides an intimate window into the artist’s personal observations and his emphasis on routine for a creative life. They are deceptively simple in subject matter yet complex and unexpected in color and texture, resulting from countless layers of oil paint that have been sanded down and repeatedly applied over months at a time. Wright’s muted palette conjures the works of Giorgio Morandi and James Castle, while his uniquely graphic and playful approach to painting treads on the heels of Philip Guston and Alfred Wallace.

Wright’s exhibition title, Standing on Fishes, is inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem, “Moving Forward,” which introduces the notion of moving gently towards a deeper understanding of who you are and how you experience the act of making. As Wright puts it, “Standing on Fishes sounds like a precarious place to be positioned. Perhaps it is about sinking down and letting go, the inevitability of becoming fully submerged in the creative process.” 

Domesticity is a central theme in Wright’s work and provides a perspective on when home life and studio practice intersect. Wright is driven by everyday encounters and how daily rituals welcome patterns in behavior as well as springs of inspiration and solicitude. From conversations with his late mother to reading sheet music with his eldest daughter, these vignettes of interior lives are testaments to the painting process and the endless quest to give form to lived experiences. 

Scenes of fruit and flowers interrupt static still lives with their vibrancy and symbolism. As objects you can pick up and handle, they hint towards the inherent beauty of the mundane and of memento mori– the inevitability of death and decay. Wright’s stylized representation of daily life is a conduit to the history of modern painting and the fundamental truths of human existence and its universality.

Press

Cultured Magazine “This Week in Culture: January 8 – 14” by Pia Alexandra Bello

Curator “Interview with William Wright and Sara Lee Hantman” by Saul Applebaum

Galerie “8 Must See Gallery Shows February 2024” by Paul Laster