profile

"Gillian is an artist whose work I have followed and admired with interest over the years. She has developed a wonderful lyrical painterly quality to her work and her handling of the medium of watercolour has an energy and directness which shows a great confidence and freshness which can only come through having a deep and intimate understanding of her subject matter.

Gillian’s works are poetic, dynamic and deeply engaging. They bring to the viewer a real sense of the pleasure with which the artist has engaged with the landscapes of her native Highlands and Islands. They are possessed of an uncluttered spontaneity in which all her inherent artistry and draughtsmanship is utilised to the full – each form in the landscape, the distant copse of trees, the folds and forms of agricultural land, the marks of plough and planter, the walling and the tumbling clutter of outbuildings nestling in the tuck of the bay where ‘white-horsed’ waves rush in swirling ultramarines and cerulean blues through the narrow ochre dotted shorelines of a sandy Kyle and all the man made marks, lyrical motifs set in the permanence of a great brooding Highland skyline. Gillian handles these works with simplicity and with a confidence reminiscent of an Ann Redpath study of the West Coast and as such, she takes her place in an honourable lineage of Scottish artists whose work is informed and inspired by the landscapes and the material culture of her Highlands and Islands home. The Scottish Gaidhealtachd is emerging as an area which has a strong, tangible and distinct visual culture of which Gillian Jones is both inheritor and exciting exponent."

Donnie Munro
Visual Artist and Musician
Director of Development and the Arts
Sabhal Mòr Ostaig
National Centre for the Gaelic Language Culture and the Arts
University of the Highlands and Islands