William West recently graduated from the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art at University College, London, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in fine arts. Throughout his four years of study, he was assisted by the Bermuda Arts Council and the Peter Leitner Foundation, and was also buoyed by the support and encouragement of his follow Bermudians.

Tomorrow evening, as a thank you to everyone who helped him achieve his goal, Mr. West is holding an exhibition of selected elements from his graduation exhibition, as well as other and new works, at the Kaleidoscope Gallery in Devonshire.

"The Bermuda Arts Council gave me a grant to support the making of the work for my degree show, which was excellent because it gave me the freedom to make some pieces that I otherwise could not have afforded," he says. "The Peter Leitner Foundation gave me a full year's scholarship 'For Excellence in Visual Arts'. I have also had other awards, as well as the general support of the Bermuda people who are interested in my work. Having just completed my degree show, I thought this would be a good time to come back and say 'Thank You'."

It being three or four years since the artist last held a "proper" exhibition here, he also sees this as an opportunity to reintroduce himself to the local community.

Describing the content of his exhibition as "primarily a body of sculpture out of wood", Mr. West says his pieces reflect his interest in items of art, and how we can change our perception of things.

"The title of the show, 'New Works 2008', is because it is one body of work which is slightly disparate. It is an attempt to curate a body of work by one person, and to show, in the best possible way, what I do, and what I have been doing. Each piece is a challenge of how to make something, and to learn new ways of forging new work.

"There will be pieces which are incredibly simple. I firmly believe that not everything takes a long time, and uses expensive materials, and I don't want my work to look laboured. I want the pieces to emit purity but not have anything of me in them – to be more about the interaction of the work with the space around it. I like a dialogue between works so they can almost feel that they are in conversation with each other. Ultimately it is about my interest in perfection and meticulousness, and how to make this ultra-romantic, absurd comment about beauty."

The term "incredibly simple" may appear, at first glance, to be a very accurate description of some pieces and the casual viewer will have little clue as to just how many months and hours of skill and meticulous attention to detail taken to arrive at the end result. The wooden rings on one installation, for example, were each hand crafted, as were the fasteners for the ropes at floor level, and the triangle is actually comprised of multiple layers of wafer-thin strips of wood, so carefully shaped and combined that the finished piece appears to be cut from one piece of wood.

To prepare for his all-important degree exhibition in London, Mr. West even spent time in Pennsylvania last summer learning the intricacies of very fine woodworking techniques in a family workshop, and says that he used the last year of his four-year degree programme to "tighten up" his work and "get to the level where he wanted to be".

"The first three years you are experimenting with ideas and trying to articulate with yourself. By the fourth year I decided I was going to make things well and spend the time to really, really concentrate on how my things are made," he says. "Based on the kind of ethos behind my work, it was a requirement in a sense."

Regarding the ethos of his work, the artist says he does not have a particularly evident medium. Rather, it is derived from the work itself, so his basic interest in creating his pieces was "an almost aesthetic beauty to the point where you are making objects so beautiful that they become redundant – taking not just any object, but imagery that already exists, like a realm of perfection. It is an abstract thought".

Following the opening of 'New Works 2008', Mr. West will return to London, where he will be working in the contemporary arts division of an auction house.

"I am going to be surrounded by everything I love and I am very excited," he says. "I love that I am going to be going into the other side of the art world, although I will continue creating my work, even though the resources are different. When you are in school you are surrounded by creative people and you have a workshop, facilities and studios. Slade is a research-based school with state-of-the-art equipment, so everything you do is researched for the next project, but that's all gone now (for me) so it's a bit frightening."

With a friend Mr. West is also forming a curating team. Already the duo have curated about six shows, but in the future they will be doing so on a professional basis.

"There is a wonderful atmosphere in London for this work, as the city is one of the most culturally aware that I have ever been in. I love it there."

Next year Mr. West will be one of just 10 of this year's graduates from all of the art schools in England who has been invited to participate in 'Anticipated', an exhibition curated by Kay Saatchi at Selfridge's department store in London.

"It is a good launching pad, and will introduce my work to a wider public and potential serious collectors," he notes.

Tomorrow evening's opening reception for 'New Works 2008' is from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thereafter, the exhibition will continue through September 1. For further information see the Bermuda Calendar.