Artist who loves layers

GILL STORR is gaining a reputation on the contemporary art scene as one to watch.

Following an accomplished career in the graphic design industry, she uses her experience and knowledge to create her layered pieces based on
photographs.

Gill coins the phrase “deconstructed lens” to describe her work, with one-off pieces that incorporate multiple layers with the traditional medium of paints, oils and gels on canvas.

She says: “Because of the nature of the work, each piece has many layers and each layer has to dry, so I’m constantly working on two, three, four, perhaps five easels at a time.

“I like to keep working, so that I can get the momentum.”

Her studio at her home in Wooburn Common, near Beaconsfield, used to be her dining room.

She says: “I’ve always painted — my whole career has been in art — but in the first lockdown I thought, ‘Right, I’m just going to spend my days doing some painting’ and I got more and more into it.

“I started to put stuff on Instagram and it was getting a lot of feedback. By the October or November I had two representations by galleries.”

Gill will be at the Old Fire Station Gallery in Henley next week with her latest exhibition, Beneath the Layers.

“My work is heavily textured and has many layers,” she says. “It’s made up of deconstructed photography images that are then painted over and so it’s built up, with layers and layers of paint and different gel textures, mixed media and so on. I’ve sort of coined the phrase ‘deconstructed lens’ because it starts off as a photo and then I deconstruct it back to its bare

“My work’s predominantly acrylic on canvas but I also use gel textures and texture pastes and it can be anything, waxes, decal papers, all sorts of things, to make up the image.”

The subjects of her pieces include street scenes from famous cities including London, New York, Venice and Barcelona and icons such as Elizabeth Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie and Rafael Nadal.

Gill says: “Most of my work starts on the computer. I have an idea and I find the imagery, which I may have taken years ago or yesterday, it could just be a snapshot from my phone.

“Then I work on the look I want and how the colours and the hues work together. That’s where the deconstruction comes in because it goes from a photograph to how I’m envisaging the artwork.”

Gill also had a successful show at the Old Fire Station Gallery in May.

She says: “I thought it was an amazing venue and we had 150-plus visitors over the course of the week and I got three commissions and two sales. I think my stuff was a bit of an eye-opener for people who said, ‘Oh, it’s quite different’.”

• Beneath the Layers is at the Old Fire Station Gallery in Upper Market Place, Henley, from Wednesday to Tuesday, December 7 to 13 from 10am to 6pm daily.