Gillian Wainwright
ARTIST BIO
Gillian Wainwright is a painter living and working in New Jersey. She holds a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts and an MFA in Painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work is rooted in perceptual observation, yet it leans boldly into abstraction—resulting in loose, gestural, and colorful compositions. Her work explores the rhythms and richness of her backyard, balancing structure with spontaneity. Views through the window of her studio provide another source of inspiration, framing the organic forms of the garden against architectural structure.
Wainwright has exhibited widely, with solo shows including Lancaster Galleries in Pennsylvania and M Galleries in New Jersey. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions across the Tri-State area and throughout the United States. Her paintings are held in private collections and in corporate collections in Morristown, New Jersey.
Her work has recently been featured in Create! Magazine’s Of Land and Longing, in an artist interview with Visionary Art Collective, and was reviewed by Tris McCall on NJArts.net.
In addition to her studio practice, Wainwright has taught painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and other colleges, bringing her deep understanding of color, form, and process into the classroom.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I’ve always been drawn to working from life, especially outdoors, where changes in light, weather, and season create an endless range of possibilities. Landscape, for me, is not only an endlessly fascinating subject but also a point of departure — a framework through which to explore perception, memory, and the material nature of paint itself.
As I paint, I move from direct observation toward something more intuitive and gestural. What begins as a specific place often dissolves into an accumulation of marks, color, and rhythm — a record not just of what I see, but of what I remember seeing. Each painting becomes a negotiation between the immediacy of observation and the persistence of memory.
The urgency of trying to hold onto a fleeting moment drives much of the energy in my work. Every canvas is an attempt to translate that experience — the act of looking, recalling, and reimagining — into something both physical and alive.
