Will Teather
British artistPaintings
(b.1980) Norwich, UK
British artist Will Teather studied at Central St Martins and Chelsea College of Art & Design. His studio is currently based in Norfolk, where he holds the post of Artist-in-Residence at Anteros Arts Centre. His work has featured in venues including London's The Mall Galleries, The Blackheath Gallery, Norwich's Art 18/21, Oxfordshire's Modern Artists Gallery, Aberdeen Arts Centre and Gallery No 9 in Marciac, France.
He has thrice been a finalist in Mayfair's "Cork Street Open Exhibition," and was shortlisted for the international "Celeste Prize" 2009.
His artwork has been widely showcased in publications including The International Drawing Annual, Artists and Illustrators, The Artist Magazine and The Antiques Trade Gazette. He also regularly writes art criticism and articles on technique for books and magazines.
Teather's work is held in a number of notable collections in the UK and overseas. These include the private collections of Matthew Bourne (choreographer/ director), Peter Stephen (Lord Provost of Aberdeen), Ana Silvera (singer), the Aude Gotto Collection and The Wolterton & Mannington Estate. In 2012, he received a commission from The City of Aberdeen, under curatorial care of Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, to create the end-of-term portrait of Lord Provost Peter Stephen for permanent display in the city's Town House.
Teather's Scottish links originated in 2007 when he was selected from international applications to spearhead the new artist-in-residence programme at Aberdeen Arts Centre, a public art gallery and theatre in the North of Scotland. The research undertaken during this period helped to nurture the narrative concepts which underpin his current body of work.
In the artist's own words:
"I aim to create artworks that carry a narrative thread that frees the visual imagination from the restraints of reason. Vaudevillian characters inhabit a play without beginning or end, where carnival and folk traditions are pastiches together into simulacrum and spectacle. As with Angela Carter's novels, the carnivalesque elements of transgression and excess allow illusion to work and the improbable to become possible."
Teather has previously lectured on drawing courses at The University of Arts London, Leeds College of Art & Design and more recently Norwich University College of the Arts. His workshops have featured in the Times Educational Supplement and, in 2008, he was awarded a college staff award, in recognition of his contribution as a demonstrator for the college's Drawing Workshop.
He is currently co-founding The Chelsea Collective, an international art group made up of postgraduate alumni of Chelsea College of Art and Design.