Jill The Artist

I can't help but be one, art is life and life is art. Painting and being creative with my hands is part of my DNA, like eating and sleeping its just part of my functioning.

Painting and drawing have been my greatest interest and talent since very early childhood. I would spend hour upon hour sketching in my own little world. I can vividly remember being around the age of 6 at school and mixing powder colours in total amazement at the alchemy… it still captivates me now!. I LOVE art, making it, viewing it and discovering it’s History. Whenever asked “what would you like to be when you grow up.?”... it was always an Artist For me! 

I Sold my first painting when i was 16 years old, it was a large A1 size watercolour of an African Elephant.

It is colour which seduces me, how they harmonise and contrast. I paint with thin layers of pure colour glazes from a minimal pallet trying to capture form in a fluid expressive manor using suggestive lines and shapes from my observations to depict the beauty of nature using sumptuous colours.

Nature and the natural world around me is my muse. During the Covid Lock down my connection to local wildlife became much more prevalent within my work which has since gravitated towards endangered species and the threatening unease of climate change. 

"I have a vivid colourist style using a strong expressive colour palette with elements taken from Neo impressionism which I execute by looking for the colour, shape and form within the subject and over exaggerating to emphasise their dominancy to the viewer."

I work out of my Rural studio located in my native home town of Tickhill in Doncaster South Yorkshire. I Open up the studio to the public once a year as a pop up gallery open Studio event.

In 2002 I graduated with a Degree in Fine Art with honours from Huddersfield University and I also achieved a prestigious award of studentship presented to me by Tutor Matthew Burrows. However a short time after graduation My early creative career took me along the path of professional Digital photography. I ran my own successful photographic studio business from 2006-2019. However in 2017 my painting passion took back over and I returned to my first love of Fine art and began exhibiting artworks once again.

Education:

BA Hons Degree in Fine Art 2002
University of Huddersfield
Diploma Art 1999
Doncaster College Church View
A Level Art 1998
GCSE Art 1996

I have always had influences from art history especially the works of Georgia O’Keefe, I recently came across this quote from her when she was around the same age (42) as I am now:

 “Great artists don’t just happen…..they have to be trained, and in the hard school of experience”

 Whist I don’t claim or feel the need to be a "great artist" I couldn’t agree more with Georgia’s quote, life like art is a journey and as we travel through our experiences shape us. It’s now 20 years since I graduated with that desire to be an artist but it’s taken me until now to fully realise my ambition.