Gillian McConnell

Gillian McConnell emigrated to Canada from Australia in 1964 and grew up in Montréal Québec. She attained a Bachelor of Fine Art (Hons) with a major in etching and a minor in Art History from Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario (1980). Gillian subsequently studied Textile Design, Fashion Design, Multimedia and Picture Framing.

Gillian has produced designs for a myriad of end products including corporate Identity, fashion fabrics, custom-made rugs and tourist merchandise. Gillian’s rug designs appeared in several magazines including a feature article in the Australian Good Housekeeping, February 1987.

Gillian began painting in 1997 and developed a unique visual signature incorporating drawing and collage. An interdisciplinary artist, she creates concept-driven work in a variety of media.

In 2009, Gillian co-founded OXOgraphy, a conceptual art collective. She has applied her curatorial skills to the conception, staging and promotion of many successful exhibitions, including a critically successful, inaugural OXOgraphy exhibition in 2012. Gillian has won several prizes in regional art exhibitions in Australia and British Columbia. Her work is held in collections in Canada, Australia and the USA.

Gillian moved to Salt Spring Island in 2006 from Southeast Queensland. She has developed a following for art and her workshops in soulful creating, expressive drawing, abstraction and composition. Gillian also does picture framing, volunteers for the Salt Spring National Art Prize Society, writes poetry and music, runs with Salt Spring Sneakers and swims with the Salt Spring Seals.

I love the sensuousness of paint, the sound of charcoal, the tension of canvas. I am absorbed by colour, captivated by pattern. I notice the spaces in between—and make connections between disparate things.

I love the aesthetic. The poetry of visual metaphor expresses the sublime in the absurd, reveals the sacred in the profane. Art transmutes to beauty from pain, all that is neglected, repressed, ignored, mundane.

I am fascinated by the illusion of dichotomy, the presence of complexity and the logic of paradox. We live in a divide to conquer world. It’s a never ending, insidious game of us vs them—a game in which we are forever right, but can never win. I surrender my Soulful Self to the creative process, exploring her memories, expressing her joy and her pain. To make meaningful work, that holds the universal in the particular; beautiful work, that engages the beholder; powerful work, that expresses discontent and possibility, is the essence of creation that engenders change.