Jane Gillette - Sisters Portfolio
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a gay artist who lives north of Boston. My primary media are pen and ink, white-line woodcuts, and paper collage, although I like to experiment. I use watercolor, but I treat it like “ink that makes nice shading”. Other times, I use a brush with the ink. My recent cut paper work has mostly been notans (or notan-adjacent) and portraits. For me, color shows up in the woodcuts, in hued portraits, and in colorwork done over patterns. For subject matter I get my inspiration from coastal Maine, and I draw people. I’m interested in patterns and lines, in catching the gist of a place or the likeness of a person. I draw places I’m drawn to. I draw people whose lines are fun to draw. I draw activists to help amplify their causes (climate change, race, LGBT+) and I draw people to share to help others see the wonderful variety (race, gender, ability, sexuality) of people in our world.
These are two variations of a ”white-line woodcut” (also known as a Provincetown print) of Drag Queen Just JP.
Actually, it’s a black line because of the paper, with metallic watercolors. You can see the hair texture was embossed into the paper.
This is a more traditional whiteline print. Monhegan Island, Maine.
A few pages from a zine I made for my child about how there are so many ways to be nonbinary.
Digital sketch for a whiteline woodcut. Laundry, Monhegan Island Maine.
Scratchboard. Pebble Beach, Monhegan Island, Maine.
Acrylic sunprint on fabric
Pen and Ink Portraits
Cut-Paper Portraits and Notans
The basic form of a notan is when you cut pieces out of the edges of paper and then reflect and glue them. I’ve been enjoying seeing how far I can take that. The portraits are “sketches” that were captured quickly and then carefully glued later. The last image here is from a series I did, Things I Miss In the Pandemic.
GEO NEPTUNE PIECE
Geo Neptune is a Passamaquoddy Two-Spirit artist from Maine. This image is done in 12 squares, each using a variation of black media: dip pen, Pitt art marker, brush, stick, wash… (The full 4x3 set is best seen on a computer or reload the site in “desktop mode” on your phone)
