William was born in East Hampshire. He studied Fine Art at Edinburgh University & Art College, concentrating on Renaissance & modern art history, egg tempera painting, mezzotint engraving on copper plates, and cinema.
William was awarded a travelling scholarship to Florence by the Royal Scottish Academy, first prize in the Hunting Group National Art Competition, and has exhibited in many galleries and institutions, including many Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions.
New work is open, rhythmic and improvisational, created instinctively, most often outside. Mutating forms, hatchings, pools and tidemarks, encrusted pastel and linked ideas create a momentum. Fragments of collaged paper (labels, tickets, scraps from photographs) and calligraphic, epistolatory, handwritten brushstrokes evolve into a synthesis of thought and feeling.