Will Vetch
Lives and works in London, UK
b. 1996
Will Vetch examines painting, drawing and collage making as a form of non-verbal expression. He is interested in how these practices communicate through an interrogation of the mediums, expressed in both figurative and abstract forms. Through the combination of these painterly constructs Vetch builds environments that host figures or objects. Working through intuitive and experimental processes, Vetch’s practice utilises free association to incorporate these forms. The cartoon plays an important role, using drawing to construct essential forms that evoke an uncomfortable familiarity alongside a palpable sense of humour. He sees his works not so much as individual narratives but as part of a continual world-building.
Vetch looks at the studio practice, both in the action of painting and its adjacent tasks. Drawings from life expand into imagined spaces, inanimate objects bloat like fingers and begin tapping at the surface. Paintbrushes dance across the canvas, hammers and screws converse, abstracted surfaces become wide open mouths. The work explores all facets of the artist’s daily choreography.
Vetch explores these mediums to their end, employing various sources of inspiration; horror magazines/found imagery, cinema and art history as well as drawing from imagination. His practice is open ended, preferring to find outcomes through an emotionally charged, process led way of making rather than through a set of clear ideas.
-
Born 1996 in Petersfield, UK
Lives and works in London, UK
2023-Present
Founder and Director, Inspection Pit, West Sussex, UK
2015–2018
BA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK -
Group exhibitions
2025
TERSE, curated by Carlotta Roma and Will Vetch, Inspection Pit, West Sussex, UK
2024
Lewisham Illuminations, SET Lewisham, London, UK2023
Babele, Spazio Musa, Turin, Italy
2022
Threads, SET New Cross, London, UK
2019
Plump Fiction, The George Tavern, London, UK
Curated exhibitions
2025
TORSCHLUSSPANIK, Curated Will Vetch, Inspection Pit, West Sussex, UK
2024
image-event, presented by image-event: Tanoa Sasraku and Anastasia Xirouchakis, Curated by Will Vetch, Inspection Pit, West Sussex, UK2023
Beating the Bounds: Finlay Abbott-Ellwood & Rhian Harris-Mussi, Curated by Will Vetch, Inspection Pit, West Sussex, UK -
Selected works
Thunderclap, 2025, oil and wax on canvas, 150 x 200 cm
A bouquet of flowers, 2025, oil and wax on canvas, 95 x 79 cm
Blind Cyclops, 2024, oil and wax on cavas, 160 x 140 cm
Night walk, 2025, oil and wax on canvas, 40 x 50 cm
A conversation, 2024, oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm
Planks, 2025, oil and wax on canvas, 110 x 140 cm
Painting, 2025, oil on canvas, 160 x 140 cm