"Different media require different approaches. I use watercolour to reconnect with an improvisatory, immediate element of painting, one where I bend over a sheet of paper instead of stand back from an easel, where the ideas drop out of my brush rather than my grinding them into the canvas. I aim to greet each new watercolour painting I do as if bumping into an old friend; hello, what’s this horse? I ask, as a pool of water coalesces into a recognisable shape. What’s he doing here? It’s up to the paint to let me know."
- Charles Williams, May 2026
Different media require different approaches. I use watercolour to reconnect with an improvisatory, immediate element of painting, one where I bend over a sheet of paper instead of stand back from an easel, where the ideas drop out of my brush rather than my grinding them into the canvas. I aim to greet each new watercolour painting I do as if bumping into an old friend; hello, what’s this horse? I ask, as a pool of water coalesces into a recognisable shape. What’s he doing here? It’s up to the paint to let me know.
- Charles Williams, May 2026
Born in Evanston, Illinois, Dr Charles Williams is a British artist. A former student at the Royal Academy Schools, and a founder member of the notorious Stuckist art movement, his work has been exhibited in the UK, Europe, and the United States. Formerly Programme Director of Fine Art at Canterbury Christ Church University, he was a PhD scholar there between 2018 and 2021, completing an autoethnographic investigation into his painting in 2023, the same year he was elected President of the Royal Watercolour Society. Williams lives and works in Faversham in Kent, and his current work is largely to do with anthropomorphism, therianthropy and the mysterious space of contemporary painting.
He published ‘Basic Drawing: How To Draw What You See’ in September 2011 and the follow-up, ‘Basic Watercolour’ in July 2014 (Robert Hale, London). He has written a series of articles for Turps magazine, London on Annibale Carracci, GD Tiepolo and Joseph Highmore. His interests are in the figurative, narrative tradition, although the work is informed by a fascination with formal elements of 2D and 3D design. Exhibitions include RA Summer Exhibition, Hunting Prize, Lynn Painter Stainers, Threadneedle Prize, The Marmite Prize, and the John Moore’s. Galleries include Lily Zeligmann Gallery in the Netherlands, John Martin of London, Charlie Dutton Gallery, and solo shows at, among others, the Bakersfield Museum of Modern Art, Cal., USA. He is currently represented by New Arts Projects in London.
