Main Projects is pleased to present Twelve Etchings, an exhibition of new prints by London-based artist William Wright. Known for paintings and drawings that distill the objects and spaces of everyday life into spare, psychologically charged compositions, Wright turns here to etching, bringing his sensitivity to line, tone, and observation into a medium he handles with striking assurance.
The exhibition brings together twelve etchings made between 2025 and 2026. A telephone, paint tubes, bottles, laundry, a bird feeder, persimmons, a garden shed, a rack of pans: Wright’s subjects come from the ordinary inventory of home and studio. These are things close at hand, encountered repeatedly and absorbed into the rhythms of daily life. In Wright’s work, that familiarity is precisely what gives them their charge.
Across his practice, Wright has returned to domestic objects as a kind of informal archive. Forms recur, shift, and gather associations over time. A window becomes a frame within a frame; a cluster of bottles settles into the composure of a still life; a telephone takes on an almost architectural presence. Familiar objects are distilled into a few essential lines and shapes, yet retain an odd specificity, as though prolonged attention has given them personalities of their own.
Etching is especially well suited to this way of working. The medium begins with drawing, but the image is transformed through the plate, acid, ink, pressure, and transfer. Aquatint allows Wright to build soft areas of tone, while drypoint introduces a more immediate, incised line. The resulting works are concise but atmospheric, balancing the clarity of drawing with the material character of printmaking.
That tension between observation and transformation runs throughout Wright’s work. His subjects begin in the world around him, but they do not remain simple records of it. Memory and association enter. The language of a kitchen, studio, or garden begins to brush against the history of still life. A discarded group of paint tubes or a hanging row of pans can feel humorous, tender, slightly uncanny. Wright’s attention does not monumentalize these objects so much as allow their strangeness, character, and emotional weight to emerge.
The etchings also reveal the importance of drawing within Wright’s broader practice. His paintings are developed slowly through studies, successive layers of paint, sanding, and revision. Printmaking offers a different route to many of the same concerns: economy, repetition, and the question of how much an image can hold with relatively little information.
Each work in Twelve Etchings is printed on Somerset Satin White 300gsm paper in an edition of 15 with three artist’s proofs. The series includes etching and aquatint, with drypoint incorporated into several works.
Twelve Etchings is part of Main Projects’ ongoing commitment to works on paper, editions, and artist publishing. Prints and editions have long provided artists with a distinct space for experimentation, collaboration, and circulation, and Main Projects sees that tradition as an active part of its exhibition program. These projects can allow artists to return to processes they have not used in some time, extend an existing area of their practice, or explore a medium in greater depth. With Twelve Etchings, Main Projects and Wright have the opportunity to foreground a part of his practice that reveals just how assured and distinctive his approach to printmaking is.
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William Wright (b. 1971, Nottingham, UK) is a London-based artist whose paintings and drawings examine the objects and environments of everyday life. Working at an intimate scale, Wright draws from domestic spaces and the traditions of still life, allowing observation to shift toward memory, association, and invention.
Wright received his BFA from Leeds Metropolitan University. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Josh Lilley, London, UK (2024); Casa MB, Milan, Italy, curated by Sea View (2024); Sea View, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Galerie Ariane C-Y, Paris, France (2023); Seventh House Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2022); and Lyndsey Ingram, London, UK (2022). Select group exhibitions include Micki Meng, New York, NY (2024); Sea View, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Charleston, East Sussex, UK (2022); Lyndsey Ingram, London, UK (2021); Galerie Ariane C-Y, Paris, France (2020); and The Eagle Gallery, London, UK (2019). Wright’s work is held in the permanent collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
William Wright is represented by Sea View, Los Angeles, and Josh Lilley, London.
