BIO
William J. Stallings (b. 2005, Wilmington, NC) is a Baltimore-based traditional oil painter. He has received an Associate of Fine Arts from Cape Fear Community College and is continuing his education at Maryland Institute College of Art, pursuing a BFA in Painting. William is the recipient of the Morris Louis 32’ scholarship, the Josh Edwards Memorial Scholarship, and won "Best in Show" at the Wilma W. Daniels Galleries' 2024 Student Juried Exhibition. William has shown between North Carolina and Baltimore, including the Bank of the Arts National Juried Exhibition at the Craven Arts Council. He has most recently exhibited his solo show, Between What’s Sacred, at the Gateway Gallery (MICA). William has been commissioned by the Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community College in commemoration of their 2024 theatre production of Hadestown.
STATEMENT
Specializing in self-portraiture, I explore bodily sensation through optical color theory and modulated tone. In this process, I code a language of paint to understand my body as a site of external sensuous experience. Expressive color becomes a symbolic tool, magnifying temperature and chroma to represent the sensitivities of the figure.
My paintings explore communication between visual and textual elements. I superimpose prose through means of printing and inscription on traditional oil paintings, creating self-reflective dialogues about sexual intimacy. My writing, whether it be philosophy, poetry, or a diary entry, serves as an immutable basis for my paintings, transfiguring the context in which my subjects find themselves situated. Applying a range of thin and thick layers, I invite the viewer into an archaeology of text and paint. This process allows for both erasure and exposure, mirroring experiences in the vulnerable scenes I depict.
Photography by Marty Pray