William Packer is an artist and critic. He works principally in oil. For many years he painted on board, but nowadays he uses linen canvas and, for smaller paintings, primed card. William tends to paint quite thinly, and prefer a fast surface, rather than one with a marked tooth. He does of course also draw, and he does use water-colours for more informal study. His work, ever since art school, has always been essentially figurative – the head: landscape - though in the 1960s the landscape side did verge seriously on the abstract. William was also very interested in Pop-art early on, and worked a lot with photographic reference. He now works only from life or the object. Still life has been a major preoccupation in recent years.
