Back to the Islands Painting

Born in Texas in 1956 and raised in a small town in Michigan, William DeBilzan was never exposed to fine art while growing up. As an adolescent, William developed a love for fashion but not until he moved to California would his life-long artistic exploration finally manifest itself. Southern California provided a deep, cultural awakening that DeBilzan had been craving. He opened his first gallery in Laguna Beach and in 1999 received a distinguished award for starting the now famed First Thursdays Art Walk. DeBilzan credits his time in Laguna as a young adult for making him the renowned abstract expressionist he is today. More than 27 years later, DeBilzan maintains a gallery in Laguna Beach and has a second gallery and studio in Delray Beach, Florida, where he currently resides. A self-taught artist, DeBilzan began painting abstracts. His curious nature and intuition led to the integration of objects onto his canvases: paper, fabric, metal, and any other material that inspired him. Coupled with a desire to share his experiences through painting, his figurative work through stick figures was born shortly thereafter. Often starting with a wash, DeBilzan builds his surfaces in a way that produces a luminous glaze in one area of the canvas and thick, highly-textured impasto layers in another: a range of textures and effects with light, all on the same canvas.