About William St. George

"I wasn’t always a fulltime painter.  I worked as an art director and a graphic designer for many years.  And while doing ads and creating logos was satisfying, my desire was still to paint.  On weekends, or any other time I could slip away, I’d paint.   I even moved my schedule around to take classes at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  Then in 1991, after the success of my first one-man show, I realized my dream and made the switch from advertising to painting.

All along I felt that art chose me, and not the other way around.  It may sound like a cliché, but it really has given me a way to express my inner feelings and emotions.  More than anything I try to give the brightest and purest notes to my color, as if the entire personality of the painting could be found in a single brush stroke.  Painting is a process of discovery.  Paint, as a medium, lends itself to many surfaces.  In one painting I will use brushes, palette knives, paper towels, any method to get my feelings onto canvas. When I create, paint is the master, and I am its vehicle to the world’s eye.

There are a lot of notable quotes concerning painting, but my personal favorite is from Gustave Guffro.  The sentiment he conveys    in talking about Cèzanne is something that I can easily relate to my style of painting.  He said:  “They say Cèzanne’s paintings are not finished.  It doesn’t matter as long as they express this beauty and harmony he has felt so deeply.  Who will say what precise moment a canvas is finished?  Art does not proceed without a certain incompleteness, the life it reproduces is in perpetual transformation.” 

I paint to the point where I think a painting is finished and then stop.  You can make changes forever, but even then, are you really “finished”?

Like the Post Modern Bay Area Painters, I paint with speed.  Painting outdoors on location has taught me to rapidly translate the image before me, as well as extending my understanding of color.  I enjoy working both in and out of the studio.   The approach may be altered, but my objective is to express myself using whatever technique necessary."

William St. George, 1939-2015