Visiting galleries to experience what artists, curators, museums, and gallerists are doing, reading conversations and essays on the internet are informative and usually overwhelming for Jill. Selected statements written by Jill are available here. They describe her work process and ideas. There are contributions from friends and reviewers and interviews will be uploaded shortly. These relate mostly to abstract, colour field, painting in South Africa.
Jill Trappler’s “Unfolding Her” is an exhibition about individuality or the search for individuality. Permeating through the fabrics, canvases and threads are signs for borders and traversal of those that the artist negotiates. Stitched in the crevices and lines of the art works are the signs that are symbolize the concretization and disintegration of discovery … Read more
The paintings for the exhibition at AVA, “Half light and shadow” are from an ongoing series, “weaving and unwoven”. The images are made on canvas with acrylic paint and various media and are found in scribbling, drawing, dripping, pouring, layering, scratching, polishing … Read more
I see the dreams of water, I see water dreaming. The four paintings, called “I see the dreams of water, I see water dreaming” flowed onto the canvases one after the other over a year or so. There was no tension in the making but rather hours of interaction with surface, water and paint. Each … Read more
The two works titled ‘Cosmos 1’ and ‘Cosmos 2’ come from the large body of work: ‘Unfolding Her’. In this series of mixed media works I looked at the personal and the collective in each image. To elaborate; I tried to make sense of bringing the intimate and the unknown (or unfamiliar) together. In this … Read more
Many writers, poets, musicians and visual artists have been struck by what is uniquely and ineffably African, and tried to express this in their work. One feels the African geography and all the people who inhabit the landscape most acutely when staying in other parts of the world. Although each place has its own spirit … Read more
“This is where we meet” An exhibition of paintings, KZNSA gallery, Durban, May 2006 There is something unique about a meeting place, a “metaxy”, where personal boundaries coalesce and open up an offering for interaction and discovery. This exhibition explores the “in between space” or intermediate region where we meet. I have used paint, canvas … Read more
Ruth Prowse, June 2015 While thinking quietly about this presentation I was prompted from somewhere to say the following; Ruth Prowse School is an institution that offers freedom of movement in a structured nurturing environment, encouraging the development, growth and deepening of creative potential and giving the students skills and confidence to move forward in … Read more
Unfolding her Ava 2015 Thank you for joining us in discussion of this exhibition. I would like to give you some information and context then I am happy to have a conversation about specific pieces if you have comments or questions. The catalogue is an integral part of the exhibition; I have not given individual … Read more
SARAH- Much of your life as an artist has been spent in the field of teaching, is this something you’d always intended or something you found after learning art? What do these Workshops mean to you and has your family always been involved in such programmes? JILL- I can’t image a time called “after learning”. … Read more
Welcome to “shades of mood.” (An interesting title indeed and having spent time in this space, with the work, I think it is very appropriate.) Louis Nel, Mary Visser, Rick Becker, Helen van Stolk and Boniface Chikwenhete Once again Margie has given us work from a carefully selected group of artist. The diversity is deliberate … Read more