Matt Williams was the winner of our 2025 Open Art Competition, the prize being a solo exhibition.

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‘Seeking Space and Stillness’ brings together a collection of oil paintings that explore quiet moments of looking. Through a slow, reflective studio practice and a focus on shifting light and transitional moments, the work seeks to capture the air, distance, and atmosphere that sit between the viewer and the landscape, inviting pause, attention, and stillness.

 

‘Seeking Space and Stillness’ is about not only about my own quest for a quiet time to paint and my search for capturing the enigmatic, fleeting stillness of a landscape by focusing on the space between it and me. 

 

I work in my small, messy studio usually late at night, often into the early hours of the morning, when the house is quiet, the family have gone to bed and the pace of the day has eased. My best work is done when I enter an almost meditative state: I listen to music, audiobooks, Desert Island Discs, The Archers … anything to occupy my consciousness which enables memory, eyes, hands and paint to connect without the interference of my brain. 

 

I firmly believe that this stillness and sense of peace transfers into the painting itself. But I am also drawn to paint subjects that invite that quiet stare, an extra moment of appreciation - the break of sunlight through storm clouds; the glint of light on melting snow; the deep shadows in the creases of a mountain - moments of transition in our environment. I endeavour to understand and capture the space that exists between a landscape and myself — the air and distance that sit between the viewer and what is seen. Light is central to this process. It defines form, mood, and depth, and allows the familiar to feel momentarily paused or softened.

 

I work from photographs, films, and memory rather than directly from life, using these sources as starting points rather than fixed references. This distance allows the work to be shaped gradually, encouraging a sense of calm and stillness to emerge emphasised through the process itself.

 

The landscapes shown here — coasts, hills, woods, and gardens — are shaped as much by this quiet way of working as by their original locations. It is within these moments that space and stillness come together, offering a balance between careful observation and personal response.