Jill Thomson
Meshing the public and private worlds of individuals and their surroundings, Jill Thomson presents deconstructed views of homes and public spaces, in collage like fashion, capturing the true essence and sensation of neighbourhood and community.
Thomson combines her urban and rural experiences to reveal a world of private habitats and community unlike that which the viewer would expect to absorb in a singular view. With a cheerful colour palette and whimsical, illustrative brush strokes, the artist commemorates ordinary, yet intimate moments and remembrances, in a representation of overall experience of place and the fragments of imagery that combine in memory.
Seen from multiple viewpoints and perspectives, Thomson's work expertly grounds figures amongst a plethora of buildings, parkways, shops, streets and public places using a serene, natural hues and fine detail.
These elegies to the unencumbered joy of home, in all its grander glory, reach beyond humble sentimentality and rather remind the viewer of the boundless comfort of belonging.
Jill Thomson received her B.F.A. from Concordia University in Montreal. In her celebrated neighbourhood paintings, depicting creative life in cities with thriving local community (bike lanes, gardens, local businesses, ravines and rivers) she has established her own visual language for grounding the figure in private space within the forum of cities and the natural world.
Her artwork invokes her personal history of a small town/prairie childhood, an urban Montreal young adulthood and a settled life as artist and mother of three in Edmonton.