Bio

North Carolina based abstract artist, Will Heller, has been combining paint and found objects since 2014. Prior to that he used his same inspiration to work exclusively on experimental music and literature. In high school he was introduced to music from Captain Beefheart, John Zorn, King Crimson, and John Cage; and literature from James Joyce, André Breton, Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche. Their works, along with many others, were an inspirational glimpse into the hidden world of the abstract view. A dormant part of Will’s mind was awoken, and in discovering Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, he realized that the abstract theme could be just as well represented in art—Jackson Pollock, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp and Jean Michel Basquiat being particularly influential to Will’s artistic theme.

Will’s work entertains thoughts of the absurd and focuses on the rejection of any known or conventional principles—in pop culture, religion, morality, society, etc.—through the idea that life is meaningless. He looks to directly oppose the meaning placed upon existence through his paintings, each work being an abstraction of reality without objective meaning or purpose. He finds that the idea of meaninglessness can allow for the most unhinged abstractions—randomness and stream-of-consciousness being very important tools that help to mirror the unexplainable nature of reality.

A collection of Will’s paintings hang in a local wine & beer shop in Southern Pines, North Carolina.

“I reject everything and reside in the hollow uneasiness of darkness—a darkness of the mind that recognizes the idea that life is meaningless. Then, through a stream of consciousness—the tool of the meaningless—I can randomly gather ideas and apply what I will to the canvas. I place importance on the vague ideas that come to me from out of nowhere. And when I’m done, the painting is inherently alive as an idea of its own. It is a representation of a meaninglessness seen through the apathetic eye of a heightened reality.”

— Will Heller