Pennie Gillis

Pennie Gillis paints in a variety of styles. She paints ordinary women on pieces of found wood and gilds the work with everything from gold leaf to car paint and nail varnish. Thus ordinary women are made into icons.

The four 'lovers' series of paintings were begun in 1992 and finished in 2008. They are painted on discarded off-cuts of board donated by workmen refurbishing Bilston Art Gallery, where Gillis was Artist in Residence. This is a first public viewing of this mini collection. There are her watercolours and colographs of the sea, the product of season after season watching the sea at Borth in Ceredigion, Wales. Usually large format, only two small examples are displayed here. And the 'small objects of desire' are exactly that. A small version of the large reflective works, tiny and scrumptious, morsels that have only to be seen to be wanted! Gillis also produces large, non-figurative works using reflective materials which, made of two feet by two feet squares, are sometimes up to thirty feet long. These are usually made to commission. Gillis's qualification include an MA (UCE), Dip in Drama in Ed. and NDD, ATD.

She is a previous members' meeting organiser for Birmingham Art Trust and both a curator of exhibitions as well as an active participant staging exhibitions throughout the UK and at Dallas, Texas, USA in 1997. A multi-disciplinary artist she was the joint instigator of the Scriptwriters' Forum, the Light House, Wolverhampton. One film she worked on, The Hill (eight minutes) was screened at Arts Fest, Birmingham in 2000. Gillis also produces sculpture, and is currently working on an installation in wool bequeathed her by her mother.

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