William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) was an American artist and writer whose experimental practice extended across painting, drawing, collage, photography and mixed media. Although best known for his influential novels and the development of the cut-up technique, Burroughs devoted much of the final fifteen years of his life to visual art.

Arguably his most distinctive works are his ‘Shotgun Paintings’, begun in 1982. Burroughs would position cans of spray paint against a wooden panel or canvas and shoot them with a shotgun, allowing the resulting explosions of colour, fragments and marks to become part of the composition. Chance and destruction became integral to the process, reflecting his broader interest in disrupting conventional methods of image-making.

Alongside these works, Burroughs produced collages, ink drawings and paintings, often bringing together found materials, spray paint and text. Across his visual practice, he approached art as an experimental process in which accident, instinct and physical intervention could reveal unexpected images.