STATEMENT
This show has three different bodies of work done over the last year:
– The Elements series of paintings with images rooted in landscape.
– The Sign Language series of drawings of my hands, which is an extension of Diary Project – a self portrait series I’ve done over the last 20 years.
– The Zelda Gilroy Project is one year’s worth of a four-year undertaking with three other artists: Catherine Bell, Pat Kelly & Deborah F. Lawrence. The process is that we each do a discrete piece and then pass it on to one of the others to conjure a new piece…somewhat like the game of telephone. These pieces are for me an opportunity for formal exploration, as well as just having fun.
I have frequently used the diptych format and a single subject series spanning years. This affords a dialogue, and the subject becomes the time between each “entry” – or time itself. I feel the Elements diptychs are inspired by the direction of Mark Rothko's work, presenting questions of mortality and transformation using the classical elements Earth, Air, Fire, Water and (from the Asian cultures) Wood to address the power and light inherent in the natural world.I was raised in a household interested in mysticism, and have myself pursued the transpersonal. My current practice is that of the Quakers, who sit in silence and listen internally for "the Light." James Turrell (a Quaker) is an influence. The Elements: Air diptychs arose after I found myself deeply moved by the simplicity of the slowly shifting sky during two separate long sittings in Turrell’s Skyspace at the Henry Art Gallery.
--Gillian Theobald