GILL ROCCA
I love the feeling of mists...
It brings everything into a
closer proximity and it makes
you more introspective
A
haze has settled across the
entire valley. The fi eld of
vision is limited with only the
nearest trees visible, isolated by fog
from the rest of the woodland. There’s
a warm glow to the sky though; it
might be sunrise or dusk, it’s hard to
tell. A pair of car headlights pierce the
mist, indicating a road ahead that
would otherwise have been shrouded
in darkness. We’re looking down on
this entire scene, as if we’re a spirit
leaving the body or a drone camera
fi lming the opening scenes to the
latest Scandi noir crime drama.
Looking at one of Gill Rocca’s
paintings from her latest Figment
series can have a strange effect on
you. There’s a sense of space and
calm to these imagined landscapes,
a confi dence that only comes from an
artist hitting her peak, yet there arealso only a few recognisable elements
within each picture. As a viewer, you
fi nd yourself clinging to these signs
of life – the headlights, the moon,
a wintry tree – as you try to make
sense of everything.
The fog has only settled in Gill’s
more recent landscapes, adding an
extra layer of mist to the mystery.
“I love the feeling of mists,” she
explains. “Everyone is almost
shocked by them, like when it snows.
The landscape is completely changed.
When you wake up and it’s misty,
it brings everything into you. The
world is not visible, so it brings
everything into a closer proximity
and it makes you more introspective.
It sparks the imagination slightly
because you can’t discern everything
all of a sudden. I’m always quite
fascinated by mists, or changes likeABOVE, FROM LEFT
Figment LI, oil on
birch plywood,
40cm diameter;
Figment LII, oil
on birch plywood,
55.5cm diameterOPPOSITE PAGE
Figment XLVII, oil
on birch plywood,
30cmdiameterthat that are temporary. You feel like
it’s a moment to experience.”
The circular panels are a clever
device, literally softening the edges
of what would otherwise be a more
obviously cinematic format. Gill
acknowledges that circular paintings
in general are “having a bit of a
moment”, but she has been working
on them since her time at Winchester
School of Art in the mid-1990s.
She has them routered to size from
thick plywood, before multiple layers
of transparent gesso are applied and
sanded back. “I think there’s
something quite tactile about the
circles. And it’s nice when they’re all
ready and they’re all blank. There’s
something really lovely about a circle
in the abstract sense too, that idea
of infi nity. It’s just a beautiful form,
particularly the little ones.”
It is not just Gill’s individual
paintings that have a pleasing
circularity to them. She likes to work
in series, often fi nding that it is the
last painting of any given series that
will spark the ideas that she explores
in the next. “That’s the thing about
working in series, you have this
opportunity to explore these different
ideas. I think all painting is about