Artist's Statement

Gillian Farnsworth’s paintings explore landscape as a vehicle to experiment with texture and materials. The finished work is as much about discovering the surface as the images they portray. Aptly coined `landscape constructions’, rusted and polished steel, wood, plaster, collage, and encaustic are applied in layers, invoking a tactile response. Part of the viewing process is a desire to experience each piece up close, and feel drawn to the enticing wax surface. Gillian is particularly interested in the manipulation of this surface and its relationship to opposing textures and found materials. Repeated house and landscape imagery are used as a template for the process and discovery of these techniques.

The landscape motif delivers a nostalgic identity for Gillian through her formative years growing up in Vancouver, with road trips throughout rural British Columbia, and now Ontario where she currently resides. Thematically they strive to express a personal experience while searching for a unique Canadian identity. Subsequently they address the organic versus the synthetic, in relation to our disappearing landscape and the rebuilding of artificial replacements.