13.2 x 15.16ins (33.5 x 38.5cm) (framed size)
Reprise available on request: £6,250
In June 2019 contemporary artist James Gillick will be returning to Jonathan Cooper, Chelsea, with an exhibition of 18 new still life paintings.
Using artistic techniques developed over generations (and mastered in over twenty years of painting), Gillick prepares every element of his works by hand, from the gessoed panels that support the paint surface to the varnish that protects it, and mixes the finest quality pigments with linseed oil to form his paints. This artisanal attention to detail ensures the longevity of his artworks, and imbues them with a luminous quality that cannot be supplied by factory-produced paints. Intimate in scale, these still lives record and find beauty in the everyday objects of a simple life: freshly laid eggs, bread warm from the oven, or light playing over a porcelain bowl.
He seems to me to be a musician of still life painting […] James Gillick uses paint as paint, and paint as visual alchemy, to show us what he sees and feels. In doing so he shows that still life can still have something deep to say.
- Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art, Trinity College, Oxford