William Breen’s enviable skill in depicting rural landscapes and distinctly Melbourne landmarks communicates a suspended moment that encapsulates both beauty and stillness. Best characterized by his use of soft focus and subtle veneration, Breen’s landscapes are testament to his skills of observation and spatial rendering. Cool and quiet they seduce the viewer with their classical composition and are imbued with a quality of meditative contemplation. . Situated in a space somewhere between painting and photography, Breen’s work expresses both a moment of significance and the promise of possibility.

'The images echo a state of suspended animation, when everything slows down to a point where one can appreciate the contemplative nature of a world in balance, a world where everything is in its right place: an ideal vision. Although each painting is an intuitive "moment of clarity", there is also a nostalgic quality, a half remembered past. The scenes are suspended in time and space in an emotive architectural landscape. Bathed in a diffused atmospheric light, the meditative nature of the urban image transcends the banal or familiar, into something sublime.'
William Breen

Flinders Lane Gallery first exhibited William Breen’s paintings in 2000. The positive response to his paintings has resulted in nine successful solo exhibitions with the gallery. William Breen was shortlisted for the 2010 John Leslie Art Prize, and has also been a finalist in the Geelong Art Prize and the Fleurieu Peninsula Biennale Art Prize. His paintings can be found in collections including the Gippsland Art Gallery, Artbank, the Macquarie Group, National Australia Bank, Loyola College, La Trobe University, and Whitehorse City Council.