William Blake lives and works outside Chicago, IL. As a participant in Civil War reenactments across the country, he portrays the artist Winslow Homer. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he also holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. He currently teaches Figure Drawing at Harper College. His work has been published in Fine Art Connoisseur, New American Paintings, The Chicago Tribune, and American Art Collector. He has been a resident artist at the Berkshire Painting Residency, the Vermont Studio Center, the Cuttyhunk Island Residency, and the Lincoln Legacy Residency.

Depicting war through art is not always an easy task. It is a delicate and sensitive subject matter, and it must be treated as such. However, despite its undeniable importance, artistic depictions of war tend to fall into repetition or feel rather humdrum. So, how should war be depicted? Art critic Eugene Benson provided a challenging perspective on the subject: American historical art, Benson argued, should be "art that shall become historical, not art that is intended to be so."

This is precisely what William Blake accomplishes. By recreating scenes of the American civil war on his own, he is able to understand the subject in depth while providing a new perspective and insight to his body of work, filling it with life, compelling narrative and a masterful display of technique.