Joann Gilles

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Artist’s Statement
My aim is to capture how a sense of place can ignite, inspire, soothe, and restore. How its recall reminds us of where we’ve been, what we’ve seen, who we’ve loved and who we are.
Paintings begin with experience, photos, stories or a model. Many paintings in this body of work originated with a wonderful artist’s model named Autumn. She not only offers the figure as landscape, her presence in the studio provides an energy exchange that is catalyst to what become rocks and sea , rolling hills, waterfalls or stormy skies.
Without full awareness, my painting style seems to shift to suit the subject--glazed skies, knife edged crags, impasto gnarled bark, etc. Medium is mostly acrylic. But anything that is compatible may be employed including: inks, charcoal, raw pigment, straw, sand. I’ve even worked with my mother’s ashes. (Those paintings are kept for family.)

BS in Art and Design, Portland State University 1983.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2012: Inscapes & Landscapes, Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland OR
2008, 2006: Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland OR
2005: The Battery Contemporary Gallery of Art, Anchorage, AL
2004, 2002, 2000, 1999: Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland OR 97202
1997, 1995, 1994: Acanthus Gallery/Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland, OR
1991: Thirty-One Northwest, Portland, OR; Raindance Gallery, Portland, OR
1987 and 1989: Collector Gallery, Lake Oswego, OR
GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2013: Urban Dreams, ReMax Foundation Art Show
2012: Red, Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland OR
2009-2013: Art on the Vine, Oregon College of Arts and Crafts
2006 through 2013:CAP Auction, Portland OR- Multiple Honorable Mention awards
2009: Heidi McBride Gallery at The Portland Golf Club, Portland OR.
2008: PULSE-Juried exhibition & sale-Children’s Heart Foundation, Portland OR.
2005-2006: Small Wonders, Woolley at Wonder, Portland OR
2005: Red, Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland OR
2004: One Foot After Another, Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland OR
2003: Five Plus One, Brian Marki Gallery, Portland OR (Group Exhibition- Six artists. six decades of life. Curator and exhibitor.)
2002: Art about Agriculture, Oregon State University, Traveling Exhibition,
1994: Art in th...