Gillian Lever

Recent Inspiration

I am continuing preparations for our Lever Arts Open Studio Weekend on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th November. (If you would like more details or would like to book a place please contact Lever Arts).

At the end of October Jake and I spent a lovely slow week in a cottage in a remote part of North Devon. I loved walking in the wild wet woodland, making colour studies and reading.

This quote on beauty is from Valerie Kaur’s book See No Stranger - a Memoir and Manifesto of revolutionary love’, a wonderful book that I read on the trip.  It underscores the value of art making at this time of so much breathless suffering.

”When we see something beautiful we call it breathtaking, but we should really call it breathgiving”... Because when suffering constricts the heart, it stretches it back out, making us more compassionate, more loving, more present.’

Jake Lever

New work

Setting up a temporary studio in a cave-like thatched cottage, I have been continuing to experiment with painting over blue cyanotypes, a practice I started in the summer. I worked directly into these with wax crayons and layers of paint, scraping back to excavate imagery and experiment with mark making, transparency and colour. Whilst these images do not depict nature in a literal sense, they are rooted in my experience of it, honouring the mysterious harmony, unity and interconnectedness felt in the wild.