A Study of Trees

Jill Lear's nature-inspired paintings

COLUMBUS OAK IV, COLUMBUS, TX
Mixed media on panel
31 x 69 inches
jilllear.com
gilmancontemporary.com

THE ARTIST: Jill Lear

KNOWN FOR: Her systematic approach of separating the picture into parts, both conceptually and visually. There is an inherent restraint in her work and rather than a replication of the tree, there is as much honor for the space between the branches and roots as there is for the tree itself. Thus her work is a topographic study involving measurement, proportion, negative space and positive forms. To Lear, recording the trees is a means of transcribing not only the experience of being in and thinking about nature, but also the way in which we process the world around us.

IN HER OWN WORDS: “It starts with a single tree in the landscape: ancient, complex, grotesque even, and witness to history. I assign it its latitude and longitude and the investigation begins; A mapping of the experience of being in and thinking about Nature; A transcription of the way in which we process the world around us. 

From the particular, the place itself: a topographic study involving measurement, proportion, negative space and positive forms. To the general, the idea of the thing rather than the thing itself: territory, light, space and sound. 

Then by subtraction I paint the experience of being there, letting only the major lines and colors of the landscape remain; distilling the elements until, like the tree, the significance of it survives; a kind of modern map of an old world. And, like maps, my paintings invite investigation into their white spaces by what they suggest and by what they hide.”

ON VIEW: Gilman Contemporary presents Arbores Venerabiles, an exhibition of paintings by Jill Lear. January 21 – February 28, 2017, Sun Valley, Idaho