Gillian day
I spent the early part of my childhood close to the Australian bush on Sydney’s north shore, where we would disappear for hours at a time. At the age of seven, we went to live i in the heart of Mexico City. For safety reasons, I was largely confined to our upper floor apartment, which is where I continued my interest in drawing.
I spent my late teenage years and early twenties in inner city Sydney, and worked for a number of years as a layout artist for a magazine company. In 1985, I moved to the Illawarra coast near Wollongong, and renewed my formal training in art. Since that time I have moved between photography, ceramics, print-making, oil painting and acrylics.
While a detached shop-front served as a studio in our second home in the Illawarra, with a move to a large 1890’s house with a large garden facing the Illawarra mountain escarpment, I was finally able to construct a garden studio. I tend to work there in creative bursts, and I may spend weeks reflecting on how to best finish a work or body of works.
I also like having the radio on to distract me from overthinking, allowing me to be spontaneous. My problem-solving with a particular work can lead me in unexpected directions, and as a result, each body of work can be very different to the last. I am seduced by the feeling of the medium I am working with - whether that be a rough or a smooth surface.
Much of my work has been abstract, and while there have been countless influences on my work, a couple of strong influences have been Rothko and Sean Scully – particularly their fields of colour and modernist geometry. In some of my works, there are the traces of my fascination with ancient cultures, particularly the writing and symbols of the Etruscans, Sumerians and Egyptians. More recently, I have been inspired by visits to Hong Kong and mainland China, visiting many of the great museums and galleries of ancient and contemporary Chinese art.
I am highly critical of my own work and a lot gets destroyed or never seen.
I regard making art as similar to deep-sea fishing: you throw your line in without ever knowing what will get reeled in.
Download Gillian's CV here:
I spent my late teenage years and early twenties in inner city Sydney, and worked for a number of years as a layout artist for a magazine company. In 1985, I moved to the Illawarra coast near Wollongong, and renewed my formal training in art. Since that time I have moved between photography, ceramics, print-making, oil painting and acrylics.
While a detached shop-front served as a studio in our second home in the Illawarra, with a move to a large 1890’s house with a large garden facing the Illawarra mountain escarpment, I was finally able to construct a garden studio. I tend to work there in creative bursts, and I may spend weeks reflecting on how to best finish a work or body of works.
I also like having the radio on to distract me from overthinking, allowing me to be spontaneous. My problem-solving with a particular work can lead me in unexpected directions, and as a result, each body of work can be very different to the last. I am seduced by the feeling of the medium I am working with - whether that be a rough or a smooth surface.
Much of my work has been abstract, and while there have been countless influences on my work, a couple of strong influences have been Rothko and Sean Scully – particularly their fields of colour and modernist geometry. In some of my works, there are the traces of my fascination with ancient cultures, particularly the writing and symbols of the Etruscans, Sumerians and Egyptians. More recently, I have been inspired by visits to Hong Kong and mainland China, visiting many of the great museums and galleries of ancient and contemporary Chinese art.
I am highly critical of my own work and a lot gets destroyed or never seen.
I regard making art as similar to deep-sea fishing: you throw your line in without ever knowing what will get reeled in.
Download Gillian's CV here:
