Striving for Artistic mastery is the one and only path for me in this life. I am a father, a son and a friend but without my painting, I execute none of these other personages well. If there is a day when I don’t draw or paint, I feel deficient; as if I forgot to do something very important. I believe that I’ve been given a chance – my life – to do this one thing well. I’m here to create works of art; to paint each day as if it is my last.

I’ve travelled the globe studying the Masters in the hopes of unveiling lessons to which I am yet unaware. Looking close and deep into a canvas created by Rembrandt, Turner, Monet, Sorolla, Singer Sargent or Fechin, I see the progression - the passing on of knowledge from artist to artist - from century to century. I drink in the lessons each successive work is willing to reveal. It sometimes takes hours in a trance like awe before the lesson absorbs into my mind. Other times the process is instantaneous. Once I find these subtle teachings from the past I work them out in my studio until, after sometimes dozens of destroyed canvases, I figure out what these Master Artists had discovered all those many years before.

When I incorporate this newly discovered lesson into my next work, the added knowledge invariably leads me to yet another brand new vista of possibilities. New colour combinations, a new way to use the knife or brushes, a new under-painting absorption rate or revealed effect. This new Key may last me for a day or for a year but once it is exhausted I must return to the Masters of the past for yet another small Key to push my work to the next level. I go off on each journey with the constant dream of adding something new - something great - to this timeless school of human artistic endeavour.

William Meire