In nature, I experiment with camera motion and altered light sources, which distorts and disguises the subject matter, creating images that appear more like paintings than photographs.
In 1997, Gillian made the transition from executive producer in film to become an award-winning fine art photographer. Since then, she has been exploring abstraction, producing work that is more about texture, color, and composition and less about representational subject matter. In her LIGHT IMITATING ART series, Gillian explores altered light sources and double exposure, creating images that appear more like charcoal sketches than photographs. She is drawn to surrealism, images borne out of dreams and the creative subconscious. In this exciting experimentation with light, a figure or reference to a slightly definable object may emerge. Her series of SURFACES has emerged through the discovery of art in found objects. Splashes of paint, graffiti or poster remnants, which exist for only a brief moment in time before being painted over or scraped away, create opportunities for montage and compositions. Gillian has explored ancient walls in Europe and local industrial sites in search of weathered stone or wood, rusted metal, and distressed paint, while finding a fascination in documenting man-made materials’ never-ending attempt to return to nature. She employs closely cropped images to remove any contextual reference, with the objective of creating a painterly, abstract image.