William Brickel: I'd Tell You If I Could

About

The figures in Brickel’s works are partly representations of himself but are also standalone actors that perform and draw out an emotional distress and catharsis to which we are made witness. Brickel projects his face onto the visage of his subject matter. At once intimately personal and emotionally closed off, each figure is absorbed into the theatricality of their two-dimensional world, as the viewer is cognizant of their emotional intensity.

William Brickel’s works are the result of imagination, recalled memories, and observations of everyday situations. His compositions take shape rapidly, shifting and morphing during their creation; they are the product of subconscious and conscious decisions. The human figure is a recurrent and central concern in William Brickel’s practice, providing a means to examine the contemporary status of the self, the other, and how the two may exist together. Brickel’s subjects consider interiority, self-possession, alienation, and isolation.

William Brickel (b. 1994) is a painter based in London, UK. He studied Fine Art Photography at Camberwell College of Art, UK in 2015-2017 and finished the Post- Graduate Program at the Royal Drawing School in London in 2017-2018.