Jill Tate

Incidental

Jackson's Painting Prize 2021
Oil
Canvas
51 x 61 cm

“Working primarily in oils, I make representational paintings that consider the possibility of ‘home’ as a structure operating at different levels of perception and experienced at different scales. The place we call home has the potential to feel like a sanctuary or a prison, whether it is made of bricks or brain cells. Often depicting domestic-like spaces, I use the home as a symbol for the mind itself, and to represent our need for acceptance and belonging, whether that is personal, social or spiritual.

I initially create the room scenes as scale models, which I then light and photograph to produce reference images. The resulting paintings are monochromatic to resemble earth architecture and suggest the oneness of all things; like paint on a canvas, everything we perceive is inherently made of the same stuff, temporarily arranged and subjectively experienced. I make paintings that aim to evoke a slight unease and uncertainty, yet simultaneously a sense of hope and quiet optimism. My work oscillates between internal and external worlds, sitting on the threshold between the known and the unknown.”