Gillian Crossley-Holland lives in a house built over a stream on the border between Suffolk and Norfolk. She's close to the fens of Lopham and Redgrave and an easy drive away from the marshes and mud-flats of the North Norfolk coast, both areas are major influences on her work.

'I remain intrigued by crossing places, reversals, those views when the earth is no more than a mirror to the sky. There are also those fascinating, changing spaces between the sea itself and a shore of sand, between the inside of a room and the view through a window, between Spring and Summer, Summer and Autumn...'

In her paintings, Gillian explores these themes and plays with composition, light and reflections. Sometimes it's the whole scene she depicts, a vast sky over a sweep of marsh or sea or fen or sometimes it's just a corner of the view that catches her eye.

Gillian works in oil pastels, which allow her to play with the surface and textures of her work, she sometimes build up layers which she can scrape away or sometimes, if she's lucky, she can lift the whole surface off creating a monoprint, a process she values highly.

Gillian trained as a typographer and graphic designer and worked in publicity and in publishing for Macmillan, London. With her young family, she then moved to the USA and lived in Minnesota where she studied painting and printing. Her work has been exhibited in galleries in England and America and she is a founder member of Tideliners in Norfolk and Artworks in Suffolk.

© gillian crossley-holland

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