Sally Gil

Artist Statement My work encompasses all kinds of history: sequences of events, stories, movies, the layering of paper, proximity, the characteristics of a place, of a life, of a bird flying across the sky and gone, passing times of days, of months, of years, houses being built and taken down... 

For me a collection is a kind of story- this is how I see the world, trying to make sense, to explain and figure out why things are where they are, how things came to be, what came before what, and why. Sequences and layers imply time passing and real events (the making of the artwork itself) and are thus a kind of truth. You could say I am after authenticity. Images in my pictures form a collection of icons from a time and place. They are chosen according to my response to a setting, to composition, color, pattern and category of thing. My choices are approximate, but not random. These icons are like words in a poem, linked by painting. Even though the images are of real places and from this world, say a tea bag wrapper or an image taken from an encyclopedia, what is real in my work and happening in real time is the painting. 

Painting and drawing serve as a link to the present moment. I am interested in psychological ways of seeing and how shifting perspective alters the story one tells oneself. Like seeing the Statue of Liberty from the subway bridge: it's very small and abstract - an idea - intimate like memory, encapsulated as a fragment. Seeing it on the boat to Ellis Island up close, it's huge, imposing and physically affecting. Shifts in scale effect perception inviting the psyche to alternate between present reality and imagination. I make my work to figure things out and to celebrate and mourn the world. It can be beautiful, rough and always changing. Painting, a thing of the imagination, is a place where this can be done. -Sally Gil 2015-16