​About 

​​

William Masters is an abstract painter whose practice examines the interdependent relationship between degradation and renewal. He is particularly interested in how approaching decay as a generative condition complicates the construction of personal and creative identity.

 

Descending from both Holocaust victims and survivors, William grew up with a self-understanding actively shaped by inherited loss. Gradually becoming aware of the ubiquity of this paradox brought fresh urgency to the subject and instigated a transformation in his painting from pensive representation to a process-based practice resembling an archaeological dig.​

​

Masters is currently a resident artist at Project 14C in the Powerhouse Arts District in Jersey City, where he maintains a live/work studio practice. In 2026, he was awarded the Art on the Block NYC Art & Engagement Fellowship, a community-engaged program supporting professional development and public-facing work. He completed the Advanced Painting Intensive at Columbia University in 2025 and earned his BFA in Painting from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis (2023), where he received the Eda L. and Clarence C. Cushing Memorial Prize for excellence in painting.

​

His 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.

​

Recent exhibitions include the LeRoy Neiman Gallery (New York, 2025); Art Fair 14C with the 150 Bay Artists Group (Jersey City, 2025); the 61st Annual Juried Competition at the Masur Museum of Art (2024); the New York Academy of Art (2024); and multiple juried exhibitions with the Maryland Federation of Art. His work has also been exhibited at Martha Spak Gallery and Des Lee Gallery in St. Louis and is on permanent display at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.