William Harris makes vivid, intensely layered abstract paintings shaped by close attention to the living world. Forms surface, dissolve, and gather again. Light and shadow move across layered fields of color, each work shifting with the viewer’s position and state of mind.

Harris lets a painting find its own direction, returning to it over months and often years. Many works are monumental in scale. Each is a sustained study of perception, time, and space: a place the eye can enter, lose its bearings, and find a new way through. His practice extends into furniture, ceramics, and mixed media.

For twenty-five years, Harris has shaped how people experience space. As co-founder of the global design firm AvroKO, he helped create some of the world’s most celebrated hospitality environments, including three-Michelin-star Single Thread, and in 2025 was inducted into Hospitality Design Magazine’s Platinum Circle, the field’s lifetime achievement honor. His paintings are the most personal expression of that eye: singular works, made slowly, by hand.

Harris earned his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art. His paintings have been exhibited at Howard House in Seattle, HOST on Howard in New York, and Edition Gallery in Hyde Park. He has works in the permanent collections of the Boise Art Museum, The Nieman Marcus Collection and The US Navy. A selection of his work is on view at Silverbrook Manor, his Hudson Valley historic estate and regenerative farm in Millbrook, New York, where he lives and paints.

Private viewings at Silverbrook Manor by appointment. Works available by inquiry.