Above: "New World City A.R.", 2021, digital image (Blender/A-Frame). See a larger version. Published in Leonardo 54:3. 2020 Visionary Award from The 2112 Foundation. More information.
INTERPLANETARY VR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES Ars Electronica 2022. A VR environment linking space art to earth sustainability with digital images from 15+ artists to illuminate the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Summer 2021
Ayton's 2019 painting, "Judgment Day" is featured on the front cover of "Occimore" (a pun between the French words "to kill" & "oxymoron") by young author Paul Rizk. Currently only available in French, the book can be purchased online.
Summer 2021
Ayton's 2019 painting, "The Creature with Seven Eyes" is featured on the front cover of "Sette Occhi" (Seven Eyes) by Italian author and musician, Enzo Ciruolo. Currently only available in Italian, the book can be purchased online.
Fall 2020 (We Are All) Caught in the Storm, a new monochrome acrylic painting, is featured in A Show of Heads (online only) exhibit at the Limner Gallery (Hudson NY), and Direct Art Magazine (online and print). More details to follow.
Ayton is Visiting Artist at Arizona State University's Meteor Studio. He creates augmented reality (AR) installations, and teaches (Blender & Unity) in workshops & classes.
Fall 2019 New Babel launched as a 10-story, augmented reality (AR) installation in NYC during Fall 2019. Please see the info page.
June 2019
The painting from the Book of Revelations, "Melt / Down" was featured in the Limner Gallery (Hudson NY) show entitled "Meltdown" from June 14 - July 13, 2019.
Spring 2018
The poster for the book launch of Diana Ayton-Shenker's (the artist's wife) book, "A New Global Agenda" at the New School in NYC. Art by Ayton, poster design by The New School. See news item below for book details. Ayton did the cover artwork & 3 section-divider drawings for the book.
Spring 2018
The small acrylic painting "It's a Small World" is on the cover of "A New Global Agenda" (Rowman & Littlefield) by Diana Ayton-Shenker (the artist's wife). The book addresses challenges facing our world & possible strategies for dealing with them.
For the latest XR works, please see the new site AytonXR.com. The current ayton.net web site is focused more on traditional media.
William T. Ayton's work inhabits the interface between myth, the human condition, beauty & imagination. Ayton's art has variously been described as surrealistic, symbolist, mystical, visionary and expressionistic. Recent works explore similar themes using interactive & immersive digital media.
Contact:
CONSTELLATIONXR AT ARS ELECTRONICA 2023
Ayton’s 2023 ConstellationXR wraps Earth with networked nodes of digital public art. Each installation features an iconic tower and orbiting spheres of XR assets to inspire insight, navigate pathways and unveil patterns of conductivity portals encircling the globe as a vehicle for planetary healing. Created with support from ASU’s Meteor Studio. ConstellationXR will premiere at Ars Electronica 2023. For further information, please visit AytonXR.com.
WAR ROOM VR 2022
This remediated VR version of the original painted War Room was created with the help of ASU's Meteor Studio to be shown at Espronceda in Barcelona, Spain & Ars Electronica 2022 in Linz, Austria. Thanks to Lizzie Ayton & Aaron Toyne for their help.
MANNA FROM PSYCHE 2022 Emerge Festival in Mesa, AZ, November 2022. Originally intended for March 2020, it was postponed due to the Pandemic and re-imagined in smaller AR form, along with a recorded video showing the various elements & preparatory studies. Manna From Psyche is a whimsical meditation on the asteroid/goddess Psyche & food.
NEW BABEL AR 2019
New Babel AR is Ayton's first augmented reality (AR) installation, in NYC's Union Square Park. Initially installed as part of the New School's 100th Anniversary celebrations, it is the first in a projected series of large-scale outdoor AR installations dealing with social issues. Read more about New Babel here. Created in partnership with the New School's XReality Center.
SOCIO-POLITICAL ARTWORK
Here is a new portfolio of Ayton's socio-political artwork (featuring the UDHR, War Room, Holocaust, and other works of a more political nature).
Image at right is "The Shootist", 2017, acrylic on board, 14" x 11".
THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS , 2019
A series of 52+ paintings on the theme of apocalypse, end of days, regeneration, rise of the new world, etc. Partly inspired by the Book of Revelation by John the Divine. Ayton plans to release this body of work in some form of published (book) format. Please stay tuned for more information. See the entire series on Flickr.
A WARNING, 2016
This is a series of 24 small monochrome paintings inspired in part by recent political events around the globe, and also intended as a warning for the future. See the entire series on Flickr.
Fact sheet: click here for the UDHR project description page (printer-friendly)
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (U.D.H.R.) was signed on December 10th, 1948, by the United Nations. In 1991 & 1992, Ayton did a series of drawings and paintings based on the UDHR which have been extensively exhibited in Europe and the USA. Click the image at left or here to see the UDHR paintings, on a site created specifically to showcase them, plus the original drawings and a Spanish version of the paintings created in Seville in 1992. Please email info@ayton.net if you are interested in using the UDHR images for appropriate purposes.
Featuring poems & prose by Katz, & the cover painting ("North America's Skull") & interior ink drawings by William T. Ayton. The book is published by Narcissus Press (Jan. 2009). You can see a preview page here.
MUSEUM ON THE SEAM - "BARE LIFE"
October 2007 - June 2008 -- The small painting, "Hiroshima: Ground Zero" (left), as well as several War Room studies, were in the show, "Bare Life" at the Museum on the Seam, in Jerusalem, Israel. Opening was Oct 12th, it ran until June 2008. Click here to see the invitation to the show. The show featured 42 artists from around the world, including Anselm Kiefer, Bruce Nauman, Bill Viola, Sophie Calle & William Kentridge. Curator: Raphie Etgar. The Hiroshima painting exhibited through February 2009.
