​Artist Bio 

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William Masters is an emerging artist specializing in gestural abstracts paintings and portraiture who is based in the New York City area. He earned his BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in Painting from Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts in St. Louis, MO (2023) where he received the prestigious Eda L. and Clarence C. Cushing Memorial Prize for excellence in painting. He has also studied in Florence, Italy; County Wexford, Ireland; The Art Students League of New York, and has been awarded residencies at Project 14C, The Vermont Studio Center, The New York Academy of Art (Academic Scholar Award) and the South Porch Artists Residency, in South Carolina. 

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Drawing inspiration from such culturally and temporally diverse sources as Renaissance Art, Stand Up Comedy, Classical Music and Taoist and Buddhist Philosophy, William’s gestural abstract works question conventional Western notions of excellence and how its accessed, exploring what possibilities lie behind the doors closed by adherence to these conventions. From his early figurative to his current abstract work, William’s practice has been a continual pursuit of pure creative expression: finding new ways of expressing our humanity through as universal a visual language as possible. 

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William’s years-long struggle with chronic pain due to Hypermobility disorder (hEDS) informs his sensitivity to and appreciation of visual art’s therapeutic power: the ability of art to address suffering of all forms simply through its aesthetic properties. 

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Recent exhibitions and awards include The Masur Museum of Art (61st Annual Juried Competition), The Maryland Federation of Art (Reflecting Juried Competition), MFA Curve Gallery (Light and Shadow Juried Competition), MFA Circle Gallery (Strokes of Genius Juried Competition), the Martha Spak Gallery (Symphony of Colors Juried Competition) and the Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis, MO (Dove in the Bunker and What is WARGAP, TARGAP) and currently in a 6-month exhibition at Busboys & Poets in Washington, D.C., April-September 2025.

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His work has been featured in art publications including the Pigeon Review Art & Literary Journal, The Closed Eye Open and is also on permanent display at the Cornell/Weill Medical Center in NYC and in private collections across the country.