Lorraine Gill - Exploring Perception

About

"It would be absurd for a painter today concerned with Nature as a totality, to paint a single scene. It is neither sentimental or anecdotal to see birds; plants; seeds; stars; waters; biological organ; cells; crystals or galaxies in Gill’s paintings. And this multiplicity, not of meaning but of reference, is part of their precision. They do not evoke; they make statements that have many applications." by John Berger​

This exhibition was chosen to demonstrate the effect of living within the atmosphere of two countries.

The Australian light is pure and composed of primary colours for a painter. The Blue & Black Series, made in London, is an effect of the quality of light that mainly pervades London’s atmosphere.

Lorraine Gill won her first Scholarship at age 15 to East Sydney Tech College Sydney Australia. She grew up in the Australian Bush influenced by the extremes of nature and the starkness of the environment and its vividly distinctive colours.

She came to Europe in 1966 winning a Scholarship to City and Guilds of London culminating in a Scholarship to Florence, Italy. Her first One Woman show followed in 1972 in London. Her work has been written about extensively by John Berger who has followed her progress for forty years.  She has also been featured in BBC films both on Cezanne and on her own life and work; she has also featured in books on remarkable women; ‘Interview with the Muse’ and the ‘Wise Virgin’.

Lorraine has exhibited her artwork internationally and also lectured internationally on ‘Drawing Techniques’ primarily for the Academy of the Princes of Liechtenstein, who are avid collectors of her work.

Her paintings are explorations into the nature of light and colour, using three primary colours plus white and black in many overlays. Lorraine spent 24 months travelling alone in the Outback Desert of Australia, sometimes living with Aboriginal People: looking and learning. She still returns to 'Go Bush' travelling in an old truck with provisions and a bushcraft friend to desolate areas.

The subjects of the works include meanings amalgamated by different events created by nature. Mangroves; flocks of birds; rock strata; tracks marking the passage of an animal; symbols; signs; the language of the land; a visual grammar. These are associations of memories and places and stories attached; “gelled” into a fixed moment of time.