GILL BUTTON
Gill Button is an English artist/ illustrator who has one heck of a knack for painting the most gorgeous portraiture you ever did see. Trained at Kingston University, Gill is now based in London and creates illustrations inspired by people and nature and places. With a list of clients as long as your arm, with names including LUSH, Vanity Fair, Gucci, Vogue, The Times, and the BBC, Gill's work is evidently coveted and rightly so too. I don't remember how I came across Gill, but the mere sight of her work was enough to make an impact on me, for I hastily scribbled her name down in my notebook to look up at a later date.
Upon revisiting Gill's work, the one emotional response that flooded me from head to toe was this: awe. It made me think back to when I did A Level Art, and I was encouraged to seek inspiration from those established, revered names, as part of my artist research. I loved and still love portraiture, yet as much as I admired the skill and unique style of the likes of Lucian Freud, Pablo Picasso, Jenny Saville, I never fully connected with them. They were good, brilliant, but they never inspired me. They never left me dazzled or enraptured. They seemed kind of generic. I was always seeking more, and at the time it frustrated me that my teachers were trying to confine me to a limited range of artists. Artists whose name was a currency in itself. What about the new talents? What about the artists that were important and inspiring to me?
Looking at Gill Button's work reminded me of all those portraiture artists, but there was, is, something so different about it. In my opinion, Gill's work is not only on a par with it, it's even better. There's something so exciting, rich, alluring, alive. Those thick opaque oils. Those broad, expressive, fluid, slick brushstrokes that are so devastatingly pleasing to look at. Those muted, daring, striking colour palettes. I adore the way those broad strokes somehow manage to create such intricate detail and definition and overall clarity. I adore the perfect equilibrium between light and shade, and that addictive colour gradient. I adore the little imperfections, like how the brushstrokes sometimes falter, deviate, splutter, swirl, and the paints run into one another. I love the curves and angles and grooves of the faces. I love the way Gill appears to so effortlessly capture those facial expressions and emotions, and with such depth and elegance too. Her work feels so innate and soulful and humane.
In my eyes, Gill's work is art in the truest sense. This is what good art looks like, and this is what it should do. I connect with it instantly. It leaves me wanting more. It intrigues me and amazes me, and I could spend endless hours lost in one picture. It makes me reconsider the human form and encourages my inner humanity. It provokes my thoughts and feelings and curiosity. The talent and passion contained in just one picture blows my mind, and it makes me wish that the world of art wasn't so focused on the elite, a select few. How absurd it seems, that those with who possess such natural, brimming, spectacular talent and prowess, can fall through the cracks and evade the recognition they so rightly deserve. So to celebrate Gill Button, who is so very special and utterly fabulous, here is a selection of some of my favourite Gill Button pieces, which I hope dazzle you as much as they dazzle me.
All images belong to Gill Button, and if you love Gill's work, you can find more of it here!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-ARTWORK-
No comments:
Post a Comment