Will Rochfort builds his paintings like a director builds a film set. Every prop, model, and lighting angle is calibrated to tell a story. His works feel like freeze-frames from a bigger narrative — fragments of life that beg you to imagine what came just before, or what’s just beyond the frame.

He was born in 1985 and grew up in Lymington, England. He studied illustration and fine art (Kingston University was one chapter), but from early on he leaned into oil painting and narrative scenes constructed with intention. His subjects are often friends, family, or props he builds himself; every element is staged before brush ever touches canvas. As he says, he sees himself as a director in miniature, crafting the blueprint before layering paint.

Rochfort’s technique is rooted in oil, often working alla prima (wet-on-wet) with a limited palette. Because he builds his scenes with so much forethought — sometimes renting props, arranging lighting, sketching, photographing — what results is both rigor and the illusion of spontaneity. In his piece First Night, for example, he tackled the original 1904 production of Peter Pan, capturing audience reactions and backstage drama in a single sweeping moment.

The emotional pull in his paintings often comes from subtle exaggeration — poses just a little off, shadows that lean, faces that linger in half-thought. He wants the viewer to sense the tension, to feel that “in-between” magic that doesn’t fully settle. In interviews, he describes his work as “snapshots of moments in time,” idealized but charged.

Rochfort also collaborates with brush and paint brands; he has ties to Michael Harding and worked with Pro Arte brushes, even shaping custom brush sets. What’s especially inspiring to me is how he holds both storytelling and craftsmanship in balance — he doesn’t sacrifice one for the other.

If you want to dive into his cinematic, intimate, atmospheric paintings — the ones that make you pause and imagine backstories — step into his world at williamrochfort.com. Each piece feels like a door left slightly ajar.