Born in England, Neil Williams attended art school before studying Fine Art at Coventry University. He moved to Melbourne in 1997 where he immediately immersed himself in the city's art scene.
Now residing in Flinders on the Mornington Peninsula, Neil's practice has evolved to incorporate printmaking, sculpture and oil painting through which he explores narratives on the history of the surrounding area. A keen observer, Neil examines the undulating topography, finding and imagining impressions he then wields into visual stories that recreate the past.
Through Residencies at the Quarantine Station at Police Point AiR in Point Nepean and Pickers Hut in Cradoc, Tasmania, Neil has cultivated a layered approach to his work which draws on his lived experiences and emotional responses to the feelings of isolation, sadness and heartache that linger within the fabric of historic buildings and the landscape's constant form, largely unchanged since the days when immigrants disembarked ships after a long sea passage to face further turmoil albeit tinged with flickers of hope.
Through a gentle mediation between now and then, Neil's oil paintings on canvas, linen and cedar panels forge connections in their depiction of buildings that were once destinations of togetherness, and sweeping vistas evolved by the existence of roads and telephone poles yet still reminiscent of simpler times. Both are rendered beneath dominant skies which allude to the notion that we are all just a small part of something much bigger.