CONTEMPORARY ART STOCKROOM William Breen

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William Breen’s skill in depicting Victoria's regional landscapes and the distinctly Melburnian streetscapes of Fitzroy and Carlton results in images that speak of suspended moments, full of possibility and a heightened sense of awareness. Best characterised by the use of soft colouration and intricate, almost painstaking detail, his paintings are testament to a master's skill of observation and spatial rendering. Cool and quiet and devoid of the human figure, these landscapes seduce the viewer with both their formal, classical composition and their genuine quality of visual contemplation. Taking in vistas that are expansive and sweeping, bathed in a diffused, atmospheric light, Breen’s images transcend the banal, hectic truth of the world, to become something born of the sublime, full of the potential for mystery and meditation.

'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.'
Artist Statement, William Breen

'These are undoubtably a master’s works. The kind of paintings that smell of salt, that break silences, rhythmically crashing with their coming tides. Paintings that can send a soft cool change over the skin as the warmth fades at the close of day. Their immersive demand fulfills the desire to inhabit the scene.There is nothing vague or washed by memory here. These paintings dance more closely with the sublime than the romantic. They are a series of film stills as potentially treacherous as they are exquisite. It is a jouissance not a joy.'
Excerpt from catalogue essay by Sarah Jones, 2025

'It is important to note that Breen’s perspective is not imposed. Rather, he captures still moments that are often overlooked in favour of the contemporary romance of the inner-city bustle. In landscape painting the artist’s viewpoint is apparent and art historically categorised: the picturesque, the ideal and the sublime. The picturesque painter finds the most aesthetic subject, the idealist renders the landscape in their image of ultimate beauty, while those preoccupied with the sublime look to the essence of their surroundings in search of the intangible qualities that give it life – and give us meaning. Breen’s viewpoint lies firmly in the sublime. He explains that the sublime cannot be sought-out, but rather avails itself in unexpected moments. Breen finds his urban subjects while walking through the streets of Melbourne’s inner north, experiencing a place, a particular time of day in a particular light that cannot be revisited – except upon the canvas.'
Excerpt from catalogue essay by Laura Kirkham, 2021

ARTIST PROFILE:
Flinders Lane Gallery first exhibited William Breen’s paintings in 2000. He has been a finalist in the Arthur Guy Memorial Prize, Tattersalls Art Prize, Doug Moran Portrait Prize, the Brett Whiteley Scholarship, the Redlands Westpac Art Award, the Geelong Art Prize and the Nillumbik Art Prize, the Conrad Jupiter Art Prize, and the John Leslie Art Prize. Breen has been shortlisted for the prestigious Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Fleurieu Peninsula Biennale Art Prize. In 2023 his work was exhibited alongside Rick Amor and Andrew Browne in Romancing the Street, a group exhibition celebrating the streetscapes and buildings of this great city of Melbourne/Naarm held at The Townhall Gallery, Hawthorn.

He is represented in corporate and private art collections in Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom including the RACV Collection, Macquarie Bank, Bendigo Art Gallery, Gippsland Art Gallery, Deakin University, Artbank, City of Perth, National Australia Bank, LaTrobe University Melbourne, Melbourne University, State Library of Victoria, Loyola College, Melbourne and the City of Whitehorse Collection.