studioe
Gillian Theobald
CV | gilliantheobald.net | #gilliantheobald
EXHIBITIONS
Heavy Light: March 10 - April 1, 2023
Chromatic Incidents: August 5 - Oct 30, 20222, The Gallery at Foundry Vineyards, Walla Walla WA
Seattle Art Fair: booth C07 July 21-24, 2022
Common Senses: Feb, 2021 Colleen Hayward & Gillian Theobald
Night Music: Sept. 19 - Oct 10, 2020
And The Language Was Beauty: Oct 1 – Nov 16, 2019
1 ROOM: August 2018, A special exhibition at The Avalara Hawk Tower during the Seattle Art Fair.
When You Were There You Knew The Language: October 13th – November 18th, 2017
Glue: Group show with Brian Cypher, Damien Hoar de Galvan, Warren Dykeman, John Rizzotto, Curtis Steiner, Heather Wilcoxon. September 9th – October 15th 2016
Yellow: Group show with Brian Cypher, Warren Dykeman, Robert Hardgrave, Carole d’Inerno, Brian Beck, Heather Wilcoxon, Helen O’Leary. May 7th – June 4th 2016
Seattle artist Gillian Theobald walks a fine line between abstraction and reality. Her landscapes turn plants into abstracted color gestures, effectively removing a sense of place in the process of embedding mood. This leaves one with the immediacy of recognition without the ability to nail anything down, suspending the viewer in a wash of colored space. Her graphite plein air drawings are tonic, restoring that very grounded feeling that her paintings seek to diffuse. This dance has its roots in her collage works, a practice she heavily explored in the 70’s and 80’s, where her use of found packaging and ephemera retains the trace of history while bending into a new kind of landscape of relationships.
BIO
Gillian was born in Southern California. Her father was a British poet and professor; and her mother had been a student in a college where he taught, in Iowa. Both of them were bookish and interested in eastern religions; so Gillian’s upbringing was a bit unusual—poets and swamis would come to tea. This steeping in mysticism has always influenced her work. Her visual interest in light (color) & nature has been expressed in her subject matter throughout her career. Her professors at San Diego State University were second generation abstract expressionists; so her work is deeply grounded in formal abstraction. A meditation practice, continuing metaphysical inquiry, and two encounters with cancer have been vectors as strong as abstract expressionism in guiding her daily practice in the studio.
Theobald was a finalist for the 2017 Neddy award, and was included in the west coast edition of New American Paintings, 2016. She has shown widely in the Northwest, throughout the United States, and in Europe for many years. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Rose Museum, Brandeis University; Gallery Akmak, Berlin; Rocket Gallery, London; Blum Helman Gallery, NY; Emmanuel Gallery, University of Colorado at Denver; the Fitchburg Museum, MA, and No Show Space Gallery, London.
Gillian Theobald lives and works in Seattle, WA.
Gillian was born in Southern California. Her father was a British poet and professor; and her mother had been a student in a college where he taught, in Iowa. Both of them were bookish and interested in eastern religions; so Gillian’s upbringing was a bit unusual—poets and swamis would come to tea. This steeping in mysticism has always influenced her work. Her visual interest in light (color) & nature has been expressed in her subject matter throughout her career. Her professors at San Diego State University were second generation abstract expressionists; so her work is deeply grounded in formal abstraction. A meditation practice, continuing metaphysical inquiry, and two encounters with cancer have been vectors as strong as abstract expressionism in guiding her daily practice in the studio.
Theobald was a finalist for the 2017 Neddy award, and was included in the west coast edition of New American Paintings, 2016. She has shown widely in the Northwest, throughout the United States, and in Europe for many years. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Rose Museum, Brandeis University; Gallery Akmak, Berlin; Rocket Gallery, London; Blum Helman Gallery, NY; Emmanuel Gallery, University of Colorado at Denver; the Fitchburg Museum, MA, and No Show Space Gallery, London.
Gillian Theobald lives and works in Seattle, WA.
