Belgian artist
Born in São Paulo in 1978
Lives and works in Brussels
Dona' Gillon advocates for a playful and intuitive approach in her works, which in fact hides more subtle and profound themes. Through her colours and her spatio-temporal relationship with the surface, she makes us rediscover a dreamlike universe on the edge between abstraction and figuration, between visible and invisible.
The key to understand Dona' Gillon's work is the layer. At first glance, her eclectic practice, might evoke simply childish and naive subjects. However, through the materiality of the work and in the symbolism which surrounds it, the artist offers us overlapping readings. When the playful and light subjects hide in reality much deeper and darker themes, it is sometimes the material itself that covers or hides the previous subject. This practice of stacking layers has two origins for the artist. These are the two inseparable sides of her work and her observation of the world: matter and immatter, which she likes to describe as "visible and invisible". When the material - the visible - is expressed by the technique and the medium used, the symbolism of the wall or the surface remains omnipresent.
wall
Walls have fascinated the artist since childhood. Through their thicknesses, they convey a certain form of temporality, a lived existence. The artist pays particular attention to the cracks, those vulnerable parts of the surface that reveal a previous temporality, a past reality. She plunges into them to steal elements of reality and to re-imagine it. The support often participates in this relationship to the wall through the use of the landscape format which echoes the physical properties of the wall.
temporality
Very often in her paintings, one finds small lines hanging on the horizon, sometimes associated with raindrops. These are 'time markers'. In the manner of prisoners constrained to their cells, Dona' Gillon materialises this other reality of time - constraint - by using lines with a double meaning. Between oppression and release, between visible and invisible, between joy and sadness, it is at their convergence that you will find Dona' Gillon's ambivalent universe. The line becomes a central element of language with a large performative part. Gestures are used in the same way as the action paintings of W. De Kooning or the spontaneous gestures of J.-M. Basquiat.
Dona' Gillon seeks the "breaking point" of the line: that perfect balance between intensity, delicacy and the unfinished character of the drawing, such as Egon Schiele. In addition to the gesture, the performance is signified by the medium used. Temporality is again integrated by the use of acrylics, which testify to the spontaneity of the gesture. As well as time passing and leaving an indelible trace. After all, shouldn't the landscape of the future also be imperfect? Shouldn’t the world of tomorrow be this "breaking point", this right balance freed from the shackles of perfectionism, freed from the injunctions of our society?
physical obsession & limits
The experimentation with automatic writing in her early years has been transformed into a symbolic and gestural language. From spontaneous annotation, she moves on to a complex language of lived existence that can be described as narrative and compulsive, while navigating between the celestial universe and spirituality. The work of the layer reflects a certain form of transcendence of pain. This struggle with suffering invites her to shape reality to her will. This strength of character is also reflected in the gestures used to create her paintings. Dona' Gillon paints on the floor, spinning around the canvas, turning her episodes of physical constraint into creative freedom.
life
The colour is put in tension. A permanent visual contrast is played out in the paintings. These bright and sometimes acidic tones give off a very special energy and often stand out from the rest of the canvas. It is a real setting in motion of the subject. This gives life to certain elements of the painting, of a landscape, which at first looked like a still life. For Dona' Gillon, the colour is indissociable from her vision of tomorrow's world. It is the solution to gloom by allowing the dissolution of material and immaterial borders through an optical game.
& death
The practice of collage once again evokes the question of time. It is from these pieces of wallpaper that an existential reflection on time begins. She keeps these small pieces of existence for several years before finding the right way to place them in her work. They are, like the figures, a form of vanity for the artist. An evocation of life and death. These mementos mori are resolutely ambiguous: they float in the atmosphere of the work so that they are neither dead nor alive. They are neither visible nor completely invisible, blending in with the rest of the composition or the landscape.
a spatial expression on the verge of the performative
The question of volume is particularly important to Dona' Gillon because of what it contains: space and time. It is a central triangulation in her work, which she interprets most often through the interplay between these elements. She resolves the spatio-temporal metaphor by a marked positioning in relation to perspective. By freeing herself from pictorial codes, she reinvents an airy atmosphere, a world anchored at the crossroads of space and time, which can be envisaged as an ideal future world. An imperfect world that is both protective and enveloping, without being imprisoning.
Dona' Gillon's work offers us a three-dimensional reading that can be described as architectural. The different levels of interpretation allow projections into physical space as well as into the space of consciousness, comparable to Fluxus. By giving the viewer the opportunity to reinterpret her work in an infinite way, the artist's paintings successively reveal different layers of expression, from the visible materiality to the impalpable perspective. The reading of her work is based on a boundless spatiality. The space never ceases to overflow from the canvas and lands on the horizon of her painting.
Although the vastness of Dona' Gillon's work is visible, it floods the space of reality and thus becomes personal to each viewer, intimating itself into the consciousness of each individual. From this practice, a timeless painting that emerges, combining performance and contemplation. These bubbles or time capsules become witnesses of a past and a future, never representing anything other than a present that is already slipping away.
Belgian artist, born in 1978 in São Paulo, Dona' Gillon spent a happy childhood in Spain. It is probably from these memories that Dona' still feeds her creative process.
Wishing to develop her artistic sensibility, Dona' Gillon undertook studies at the School of Visual Arts "Le 75" in Brussels, a place of exchange and research. During her studies, in order to complete her approach to painting, she explored various mediums such as photography, engraving and screen printing. She quickly decided to organise a workshop with six artist friends to encourage creative emulation.
Health problems caught up with her and forced her to rest. During what she describes as "her life in brackets", she develops a different relationship to time, which will be a constant in her work. The artist clings to an optimistic vision of her surroundings in order to connect with her inner world.
Her approach is instinctive: the flash of an emotion makes her pick up her brushes, without any precise idea of what it will become. Little by little, she translates this sensation, this memory through a superimposition of pictorial layers whose change or absence of perspective are the consequences of another vision, malleable according to her feelings as if she were playing with space and time.
Dona' Gillon's pictorial world is based on her sensory and visual experiments, but also and above all on her inner experience which takes shape on the canvas thanks to a transposition of colours and forms. Her world is populated by emotions and untouched sensations that are reflected in a painting dominated by sensitivity. Through these sensitive and fragile lines, her work evokes the discovery and wonder of an adventure.
Her colourful and warm art reflects her personality, a gentle mixture of art brut and naive. Her flat compositions remain dynamic despite everything: between figurative forms and free arrangement of colours, the painting becomes a story whose unfolding can be experienced in the contemplation of the painting. The titles of her works, deliberately enigmatic and tinged with humour, allow the viewer's gaze to be directed towards certain areas of the painting that are supposed to welcome the indicated figure. The viewer's observation then becomes a journey, a real quest for meaning that invites the spectators not to stop at the first reading and to immerse themselves in the painting.
The support also plays an important role as an actor in the construction and balance of the painting. Attracted by materials that have a life of their own, the artist regularly uses recycled materials such as wooden boards or old wallpapers and scraps of paper, but also works on canvas by mixing different painting techniques.
Large formats are particularly suitable for her to give free rein to gesture, movement and rhythm, which are fundamental notions in her work, as they are the building blocks of a story. Action Painting on a formal level, she nevertheless abandons its dramatism. If she paints on the ground, it is to better pour out her ideas: this allows her to turn around the canvas, to have several points of view and ensures an uncomfortable side that forces her to surpass herself.
If we had to define her style, we could describe it as figurative with an abstract tendency. Everyday objects are elevated to the level of pictorial subject. Basquiat and Picasso inspire her, Twombly touches her, but Dona' Gillon does not identify directly with any of them. She willingly breaks away from the trends in an attempt to maintain a pure vision outside the agreed aesthetic norms. Her art stems from spontaneous experience, not from systematic research, and she does not claim any transcendental reference.
Dona' Gillon, an artist of intuition, intends to arouse emotion in the viewer. Her work cannot be apprehended at a glance: it is an invitation to take one's time, to travel and to let one's buried emotions come to the surface. Between dream and reality, between abstraction and figuration, by contemplating her work, we discover with happiness that painting is also made of poetry.
Belgian artist born in São Paulo in 1978
Lives and works in Brussels
Dona' Gillon advocates for a playful and intuitive approach in her works, which in fact hides more subtle and profound themes. Through her colours and her spatio-temporal relationship with the surface, she makes us rediscover a dreamlike universe on the edge between abstraction and figuration, between visible and invisible.
The key to understand Dona' Gillon's work is the layer. At first glance, her eclectic practice, might evoke simply childish and naive subjects. However, through the materiality of the work and in the symbolism which surrounds it, the artist offers us overlapping readings. When the playful and light subjects hide in reality much deeper and darker themes, it is sometimes the material itself that covers or hides the previous subject. This practice of stacking layers has two origins for the artist. These are the two inseparable sides of her work and her observation of the world: matter and immatter, which she likes to describe as "visible and invisible". When the material - the visible - is expressed by the technique and the medium used, the symbolism of the wall or the surface remains omnipresent.
wall
Walls have fascinated the artist since childhood. Through their thicknesses, they convey a certain form of temporality, a lived existence. The artist pays particular attention to the cracks, those vulnerable parts of the surface that reveal a previous temporality, a past reality. She plunges into them to steal elements of reality and to re-imagine it. The support often participates in this relationship to the wall through the use of the landscape format which echoes the physical properties of the wall.
temporality
Very often in her paintings, one finds small lines hanging on the horizon, sometimes associated with raindrops. These are 'time markers'. In the manner of prisoners constrained to their cells, Dona' Gillon materialises this other reality of time - constraint - by using lines with a double meaning. Between oppression and release, between visible and invisible, between joy and sadness, it is at their convergence that you will find Dona' Gillon's ambivalent universe. The line becomes a central element of language with a large performative part. Gestures are used in the same way as the action paintings of W. De Kooning or the spontaneous gestures of J.-M. Basquiat.
Dona' Gillon seeks the "breaking point" of the line: that perfect balance between intensity, delicacy and the unfinished character of the drawing, such as Egon Schiele. In addition to the gesture, the performance is signified by the medium used. Temporality is again integrated by the use of acrylics, which testify to the spontaneity of the gesture. As well as time passing and leaving an indelible trace. After all, shouldn't the landscape of the future also be imperfect? Shouldn’t the world of tomorrow be this "breaking point", this right balance freed from the shackles of perfectionism, freed from the injunctions of our society?
physical obsession & limits
The experimentation with automatic writing in her early years has been transformed into a symbolic and gestural language. From spontaneous annotation, she moves on to a complex language of lived existence that can be described as narrative and compulsive, while navigating between the celestial universe and spirituality. The work of the layer reflects a certain form of transcendence of pain. This struggle with suffering invites her to shape reality to her will. This strength of character is also reflected in the gestures used to create her paintings. Dona' Gillon paints on the floor, spinning around the canvas, turning her episodes of physical constraint into creative freedom.
life
The colour is put in tension. A permanent visual contrast is played out in the paintings. These bright and sometimes acidic tones give off a very special energy and often stand out from the rest of the canvas. It is a real setting in motion of the subject. This gives life to certain elements of the painting, of a landscape, which at first looked like a still life. For Dona' Gillon, the colour is indissociable from her vision of tomorrow's world. It is the solution to gloom by allowing the dissolution of material and immaterial borders through an optical game.
& death
The practice of collage once again evokes the question of time. It is from these pieces of wallpaper that an existential reflection on time begins. She keeps these small pieces of existence for several years before finding the right way to place them in her work. They are, like the figures, a form of vanity for the artist. An evocation of life and death. These mementos mori are resolutely ambiguous: they float in the atmosphere of the work so that they are neither dead nor alive. They are neither visible nor completely invisible, blending in with the rest of the composition or the landscape.
a spatial expression on the verge of the performative
The question of volume is particularly important to Dona' Gillon because of what it contains: space and time. It is a central triangulation in her work, which she interprets most often through the interplay between these elements. She resolves the spatio-temporal metaphor by a marked positioning in relation to perspective. By freeing herself from pictorial codes, she reinvents an airy atmosphere, a world anchored at the crossroads of space and time, which can be envisaged as an ideal future world. An imperfect world that is both protective and enveloping, without being imprisoning.
Dona' Gillon's work offers us a three-dimensional reading that can be described as architectural. The different levels of interpretation allow projections into physical space as well as into the space of consciousness, comparable to Fluxus. By giving the viewer the opportunity to reinterpret her work in an infinite way, the artist's paintings successively reveal different layers of expression, from the visible materiality to the impalpable perspective. The reading of her work is based on a boundless spatiality. The space never ceases to overflow from the canvas and lands on the horizon of her painting.
Although the vastness of Dona' Gillon's work is visible, it floods the space of reality and thus becomes personal to each viewer, intimating itself into the consciousness of each individual. From this practice, a timeless painting that emerges, combining performance and contemplation. These bubbles or time capsules become witnesses of a past and a future, never representing anything other than a present that is already slipping away.
Belgian artist, born in 1978 in São Paulo, Dona' Gillon spent a happy childhood in Spain. It is probably from these memories that Dona' still feeds her creative process.
Wishing to develop her artistic sensibility, Dona' Gillon undertook studies at the School of Visual Arts "Le 75" in Brussels, a place of exchange and research. During her studies, in order to complete her approach to painting, she explored various mediums such as photography, engraving and screen printing. She quickly decided to organise a workshop with six artist friends to encourage creative emulation.
Health problems caught up with her and forced her to rest. During what she describes as "her life in brackets", she develops a different relationship to time, which will be a constant in her work. The artist clings to an optimistic vision of her surroundings in order to connect with her inner world.
Her approach is instinctive: the flash of an emotion makes her pick up her brushes, without any precise idea of what it will become. Little by little, she translates this sensation, this memory through a superimposition of pictorial layers whose change or absence of perspective are the consequences of another vision, malleable according to her feelings as if she were playing with space and time.
Dona' Gillon's pictorial world is based on her sensory and visual experiments, but also and above all on her inner experience which takes shape on the canvas thanks to a transposition of colours and forms. Her world is populated by emotions and untouched sensations that are reflected in a painting dominated by sensitivity. Through these sensitive and fragile lines, her work evokes the discovery and wonder of an adventure.
Her colourful and warm art reflects her personality, a gentle mixture of art brut and naive. Her flat compositions remain dynamic despite everything: between figurative forms and free arrangement of colours, the painting becomes a story whose unfolding can be experienced in the contemplation of the painting. The titles of her works, deliberately enigmatic and tinged with humour, allow the viewer's gaze to be directed towards certain areas of the painting that are supposed to welcome the indicated figure. The viewer's observation then becomes a journey, a real quest for meaning that invites the spectators not to stop at the first reading and to immerse themselves in the painting.
The support also plays an important role as an actor in the construction and balance of the painting. Attracted by materials that have a life of their own, the artist regularly uses recycled materials such as wooden boards or old wallpapers and scraps of paper, but also works on canvas by mixing different painting techniques.
Large formats are particularly suitable for her to give free rein to gesture, movement and rhythm, which are fundamental notions in her work, as they are the building blocks of a story. Action Painting on a formal level, she nevertheless abandons its dramatism. If she paints on the ground, it is to better pour out her ideas: this allows her to turn around the canvas, to have several points of view and ensures an uncomfortable side that forces her to surpass herself.
If we had to define her style, we could describe it as figurative with an abstract tendency. Everyday objects are elevated to the level of pictorial subject. Basquiat and Picasso inspire her, Twombly touches her, but Dona' Gillon does not identify directly with any of them. She willingly breaks away from the trends in an attempt to maintain a pure vision outside the agreed aesthetic norms. Her art stems from spontaneous experience, not from systematic research, and she does not claim any transcendental reference.
Dona' Gillon, an artist of intuition, intends to arouse emotion in the viewer. Her work cannot be apprehended at a glance: it is an invitation to take one's time, to travel and to let one's buried emotions come to the surface. Between dream and reality, between abstraction and figuration, by contemplating her work, we discover with happiness that painting is also made of poetry.