Centerspread

A fresh canvas

William Atkinson ‘95 and his art

have made their way across the country and around the world. From the mountains of Colorado, to the streets of Los Angeles, to the grand and celebrated galleries of New York City, Milan and Madrid, Atkinson has made his name known in the art world.

Now he’s decided to return home

to pursue his long term dream: teaching English.

STORY Siddhartha Sinha, Luke Piazza PHOTOS Courtesy William Atkinson

Out on Display

Here are some of William Atkinson’s showings and exhibitions around the world:

2009-2014

• Crewest Gallery, Los

Angeles, California: Top of the Dome IV • Le Spec Gallery, Los

Angeles, CA: Viva Los

Angeles and We the

People: Art for the

Masses • The Site UnScene, Los

Angeles, CA: Project

Remember: Bring the

Troops Home

2015-2020

• Van Gogh Gallery, Madrid,

Spain: Luxembourg

International Contemporary

Art Fair • Dallas Children’s Advocacy

Center, Dallas, TX: Art for

Advocacy Auction • Agora Gallery, New York,

NY: “Distant Observations of

Abstraction & Tradition”

2021

• M.A.D.S., Milan, Italy:

“Love My Body” and

“Kromatic @rt” • Van Gogh Gallery, Madrid,

Spain: Paris International

Contemporary Art Fair (Upcoming) • Agora Gallery, New York,

NY: New York Art Expo (Upcoming) • Red Dot Miami, Miami,

FL: Art Basel (Upcoming)

ON DISPLAY

Many of William Atkinson’s works are available for sale and viewing at Agora Gallery in New York City, including “My Boundary Does Not Move,” pictured here.

Every day, sixth graders walk from classroom to classroom, subject to subject, building to building during an ordinary school day.

From biology to foreign language to math, all of their teachers have been working at schools for years. All of them have had a direct path from high school to college to where they are today. All have worked under their real names for their entire career.

All except one.

For a number of sixth graders this year, they’ll be learning humanities from a former police officer. They’ll be learning how to structure five-paragraph essays from a Marine instructor. They’ll be learning about ancient civilizations from an artist with gallery exhibitions in New York, Madrid and Milan.

They’ll be learning from William Atkinson.

While most may know William Atkinson ‘95 as a former student teacher or a current teacher aide to Thomas S. Adams Master Teaching Chair Rebecca Jenkins, he began his winding journey at West Point, where he studied for two years before finishing his degree at SMU. Following several summers in Colorado working on a ranch, he settled there and served as a police officer in a smaller community to guarantee that he would have the personal impact and relationships he was looking for.

“Being a police officer is absolutely one of the most rewarding jobs when done correctly,” Atkinson said. “It is also a job where you receive immediate feedback if you are not doing it correctly. As a young officer, there was no bigger compliment than the local community calling 9-1-1 and asking if Officer Atkinson is helping.”

Soon after he was recruited to assist the Marine Corps in Los Angeles as an subject matter expert, instructing Marines on counterinsurgency and irregular warfare.

“We conducted classroom training, range training, and real world training,” Atkinson said. “I was not assigned to a particular location but was part of a traveling team that went wherever we were needed. We also provided support for certain directives, situations, and initiatives. Teaching Marines as a civilian is an incredibly high honor. Marines have a long and storied tradition of teaching their own — so you can imagine it was an interesting environment until they got to know us. If we helped just one Marine feel safer, all of those years were an honor.”

At the same time, Atkinson also decided to make a name for himself in the Los Angeles street art world nearly ten years ago when local galleries tried to capture the trendy art form.

“There was a huge resurgence of street art in L.A. for a whole confluence of reasons,” Atkinson said. “One thing people were very good at in the L.A. art world is capitalizing on things that are interesting, on trend, really capturing a moment. Galleries were transitioning this art form present in the city into a gallery space.”

Originally working under a pseudonym without any formal art education, Atkinson said the biggest consideration in his transition from street art to gallery art and fine art surrounded his identity.

“That was an interesting and challenging and emotional decision to make,” Atkinson said. “To transition from that and come out of the shadows and say, 'This is me.' I just work under my name now, which is a very different experience than having that shroud of anonymity around it. For me, that was a pretty big moment to consider how and if and why to do that.”

From the small galleries and artistic communities in Los Angeles, Atkinson’s art gathered momentum, and he says that his exhibitions are still difficult to come to grips with.

“Right now, I'm lucky enough to be represented by a gallery in New York City, a new gallery in Madrid and another gallery in Milan,” Atkinson said. “It's kind of crazy. I pinch myself every day because I know how hard it is to be recognized in any way in the art world. To have a gallery dedicate space to you is such a huge honor.”

But 12 years removed from his start in street art, Atkinson says it’s time for him to come back to his roots — come back to Dallas.

“This constant of education has always been there for me and something I love,” Atkinson said. “When I came back to Dallas, I spoke with [wife] Jacqueline, and I was like, 'I'd like to teach professionally in a formal academic setting, so I need to start pursuing that goal.' She said that was phenomenal.”

If all goes to plan, Atkinson wants to commit the next 20 to 25 years of his life to teaching, but the first step is completing his Master’s degree in education.

“Student teaching was the last portion of the masters,” Atkinson said. “For me, there is no higher honor than teaching at St. Mark's. I absolutely love it. It's just the most wonderful honor to be a part of such an academic lineage that I'm excited for any opportunity to be there.”

That being said, Atkinson still had reservations. Twenty-five years after his graduation, he wasn’t sure about his fit in the community, so before he committed to teaching on campus, Atkinson took on a number of jobs on campus, coaching eighth grade football, Middle School wrestling and Middle School track.

Atkinson says those experiences reinforced the feeling that 10600 Preston Rd. was right for him. And now, having spent nearly three quarters teaching classes this year, Atkinson says he appreciates the belief his more-experienced colleagues have shown in him. “[Cecil H. and Ida Green Master Teaching Chair Scott] Gonzalez and I did two weeks remotely,” Atkinson said, “and then Mr. Gonzalez — out of absolute kindness and generosity – turned over his classes to me and I was doing the full instruction for the quarter. He would monitor through Teams, but it was a huge vote of confidence. It's been such a wonderful learning experience.”

From Colorado police officer to Los Angeles Marine-instructor-by-day-artist-by-night to Dallas humanities instructor, Atkinson says he’s where he’s always wanted to be.

Even as his street art gained recognition, even as galleries and art fairs around the world wanted to exhibit his work, even as his name gathered momentum in the art world, Atkinson says the plan was always to move professional art into the background and become a teacher.

And he has no regrets.

“It has absolutely affirmed my choice to dedicate the next 25 years of my life to teaching,” Atkinson said. “Coming back with life experience allows for unique insight as to how special our school is. Everyone asks me what it is like to teach at St. Mark’s, and I always say that the boys make it very easy and enjoyable. I am honored to have any part in the academic legacy of our institution.”

William Atkinson ‘95 Teacher aide Each piece should be an opportunity to push your artistic boundary. If not, you are just repeating the same expressive moment. A blank canvas conveys a sense of challenge and opportunity, no matter how many times you face it.

William Atkinson ‘95,

Sixth grade humanities instructor

Mini-gallery A look at some of Atkinson’s pieces featured around the globe across the years and the hidden secrets behind them.

“More Than Cool Reason” (2018)

There was a lot of energy in that piece. It is probably an ad from a magazine. I like to use a lot of recontextualization of those because those are major decision making forces for people: “Why’d you do this? I saw it on an ad. It told me to.” What are you really looking at? What is motivating you to do those things? What is your process, and what do you make decisions based off of? For me, sometimes I’ll have an image that I want to use, and sometimes they’ll be scrolling online and say “That’s the one.” And they enter paintings at different times in the process in different ways.

There’s a person named Colonel John Boyd. He developed something called the OODA loop, which is ‘Observe, Orient, Decide and Act.’ That’s basically one interpretation of how humans make decisions. You observe something. Your brain orients to it. You make a decision. And then you act upon it. I wanted to have that in more of a public foray or discourse. There’s also my own type of personality that would go with that as well, so it had an edge to it that was uniquely mine. For a couple of years, it was really enjoyable.

“June” (2019)

For me, “June” is an important piece. One night when I was painting, I was putting the finishing touches on it and was like, “I’ll work with it for a little bit.” Then my wife came in and said “We’ve got to go to the hospital because I’m having a baby.” And I was like, “ Okay painting’s done!” So that was that night, and the wallpaper that goes across it is actually wallpaper from my daughter’s nursery.

That one obviously matters more and has a special connection to it. It doesn’t mean I won’t show it and won’t sell it. My wife is just mortified that I would sell it, but it’s meant to live with others. I know what it means, I know what happiness it brought me and hopefully if it ends up living with someone, they can have a piece of that. I was in Brooklyn in this little thrift store, a secondhand store in a basement, and I was looking for books and things that were interesting. And there was this little stack of art books that were commissioned by the government in the ‘60s to document art that’s taking place and nature and all these wonderful things in America.

It was a series of books, and they were beautiful, but each one was very thin and detailed and had been sitting there forever. I was thumbing through them, and it was really profound, and the writing was really beautiful. So I grabbed the stack and I’ve gone through there and brought their energy out and reintroduced it back to the world so it can live again.

Series: “In Media Res” (2015 - 9 total pieces)

This series is an older representation of my work. I spent the better part of 2014 preparing for my first solo show. One night I needed a mental, creative and emotional break. I pulled out a long single sheet from a roll of paper and this series was the result. It was created as one piece and, as per my practice, in one night. The piece was literally a moment in the middle of a thing.

I was still showing under my street art pseudonym at this time, so the work is more representative of that style. My street art was edgier and more raw in its expression than my current work. I am proud of all my work and happy to be in a more refined artistic space now.

“War Chest” (2020)