Will Day
Will Day (b. 1971) is an American abstract painter known for large-scale, highly tactile compositions defined by vibrant color, energetic gesture, and layered surfaces. Originally from New York and now based in Boulder, Colorado, Day works intuitively across multiple paintings at once, often developing his work in series that explore different facets of lived experience. His paintings translate emotion, memory, struggle, and hope into fields of color and movement, balancing spontaneity with an underlying sense of structure.
Day begins many of his paintings with unprimed canvas laid directly on the studio floor. Working primarily in oil and acrylic and incorporating unconventional tools, he builds surfaces through repeated physical gestures, allowing textures, forms, and relationships between colors to emerge through the process of making. His background in architecture remains visible in the scale and construction of the work, where instinctive mark-making is often held in tension with an architectural sense of balance and organization.
After his wife survived the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Day left a career in finance and went on to study architecture at Pratt Institute, a transition that ultimately led him to pursue painting. That experience continues to inform a practice centered on transformation, resilience, and what Day describes through his work as the possibilities of hope, wonder, and renewal.
Day’s work has been exhibited in galleries across the United States and is held in private and public collections in the United States, Europe, and North Africa. He has also been featured in publications including Forbes, LUXE Interiors + Design, Whitehot Magazine, and 5280, and has appeared as a TEDx speaker.
Day lives and works in Boulder, Colorado.
