GILL ROCCA
fi rst layers of gesso primer, Gill will
be formulating a plan for each of her
panels. She will know from the start
whether a painting will be daytime,
dusk or night. “For the paintings to
work, they have to look real enough,
like they could be a real place. I think
a lot of that comes from what’s
happening in the sky. To get that right,
to get that gradation right, to make it
look convincing is sort of the fi rst job.”
Multiple layers of oil paint, thinned
with Liquin, are then used to slowly
build up tonal areas as each new
painting emerges seemingly out of
the mist. Gill has looked regularly at
the work of Gerhard Richter in this
respect. She remains in awe of his
visionary approach to mundane
subject matter and a lone book of his
writings on art sits on her studio
shelves, close at hand.
You get the sense Gill likes to
feel her way around a composition
rather tentatively, waiting to see
RIGHTFigment L,
oil on birch plywood,
40cm diameter