C.R. Gill
This portrait, After (February 2023), is a self-portrait of the artist (C.R. Gill) painting. Finished three years after I started testosterone, it is an exploration of my experience of being a body rather than merely having a body. This painting is the second half of a diptych. The first half, Before (October 2020), is a similar self-portrait finished mere weeks before my top surgery.
As a non-binary artist, I am interested in the subjective experience and absurdities of people. I want to explore the connections between the absurd, death, and the drive to live authentically. I am especially interested in exploring the big emotional footprints, the moments of transformation and transition, in being a person and a body. We subjectively experience being a body. However it is an experience that we cannot directly share with others. How do we live with that and experience ourselves in the world? How do we experience ourselves with others? How do we experience the body as other and self? I want to question the projections we struggle with and the effects they have on us. I want to induce feelings of empathy, discomfort, anxiety, and joy. I see art as a means for creating opportunities for communicating through encouraging curiosity about ourselves and others in an ongoing process of discovery and confrontation.
The portrait on exhibit is part of a diptych, shown below.
Subject: Self
After 2023, oil on canvas, 18” x 24”
C.R. Gill (they/them, b. 1977) was born and raised on the east coast of Canada. Their home is in Ottawa, Ontario, where they started seriously studying painting and drawing in 2018. They trained for two years in classical figure painting and drawing under Sarah Marie Lacy (The Drawing Room, Ottawa) and were accepted to study at Studio Escalier (France) in their Summer Intensive program in the summer of 2020. Alas, that was not to be due to the pandemic. Instead they attended Studio Escalier classes online in 2021. C.R. Gill also holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering and a graduate certificate in conflict resolution studies.