‘The quality which all the paintings have in common, whatever their ostensible subject matter, is that each is an epiphany of some kind. What they celebrate is complex. They are, obviously, very much concerned with the act of looking. It is a certain puritanism about this which gives them their astringency. The artist’s concern for how things really look, as opposed to the way that accepted artistic convention tell us they ought to look, is, as I have said, one of his major reasons for making them. But in addition, he is fascinated by the element of artifice inherent in all picture making. The real triumph of William Wilkins’ painting is that, for all their underlying complexities, our first sensation on encountering one of them is always a shock of delight. Their truest function is to communicate efficiently the very things that words cannot convey.’ Edward Lucie-Smith
‘There is something very original in his work – a purity of tone that sets his paintings apart from anything else that they may seem at first glance to resemble. His eye is utterly flawless in its analysis of the light that forms his principal subject matter, and his hand is unfaltering in rendering it. The result is a series of small pictures that add up to a triumph of the painter’s art.’ Hilton Kramer, The New York Times
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