Sister Wendy Beckett

writing on

JAMES GILLICK

At a time when too much contemporary art is both adolescent and unexciting, it is a joy to find a true artist, committed heart, soul and hand to celebrate the beauty of the world. James Gillick sees this beauty in the ordinary: nothing here is picturesque or Romanticised.
A lone jonquil in a glass jar is depicted with the same reverent attention as vegetables and fruit on a kitchen table. He catches all the subtleties of light, the simplicity or complexity of form, the shiny textures of fish scales and the coarse smoothness of vegetable rind.

The very ordinariness of the subject matter makes these works almost thrilling in their truth and power. This is art as the great still-life painters of the past understood it, and we are blessed to have a contemporary who shares their vision