Billy Myles-Berkouwer is currently studying on the MA Painting programme at the Royal College of Art. He has work on show at Chilli Gallery, London and Matthew Carey-Williams, London, through August 2026.

Billy Myles-Berkouwer's paintings embrace the distinct languages and histories of photorealism, gestural abstraction, minimalism and pop. Drawing on found advertorial and reprographic images of human figures and consumer products, Myles-Berkouwer makes paintings that infuse these subjects with a life that was nascent but not able to flourish in their original form.

Through his time at the RCA, Myles-Berkouwer crafted surfaces using industrial techniques, welding, cutting and sanding raw metal as part of his studio practice. Replacing the conventional canvas with these metal surfaces allowed for the development of a painting technique that combines industrial paints with artist’s acrylic, resulting in ethereal paintings that have a filmic quality; moments or vignettes marked with significance that evade a singular definition.

Alongside this painting technique, reflections on computer programming and the automation of labour led to the conception of a component-based approach to painting, where painted surfaces are assembled during installation to form the work. These compositions fuse highly finished block colours, intense, forceful abstractions, and meticulously executed photorealist painting.