Gillian Blease

Gillian Blease was a visiting lecturer earlier in the university year. I found her lecture interesting as she talked through how she has progressed as an illustrator coming from a fine art background. She talked us through her work, influences, source material, professional constraints, and problems she has encountered working in the design industry.

Gillian talked about her previous education and places of study, starting at Stockport college moving on to MMU and then to study fine art at Newcastle University. She then moved on to discuss her influences such as Andy Warhol, Paul Rand and terry frost. She then explained that her time spent in japan had massive influence and inspiration on her work, causing her to think simple and produce clean and clear aesthetics, lines and shape.

As she began to show her work you could start to see the results of having such influence and inspirations. Her colour pallets are beautiful and vibrant which you could say contributes to her work becoming instantly recognisable. Gillian came across humble and quite modest but let her work do the talking. Although, with this said I felt her work also reflected her personality and seemed to show an innocence and purity. Which one could suggest comes from the simplicity and limited colour scheme within each piece.

Overall I really enjoyed Gillians lecture and work as a whole. Throughout the lecture and looking at her work I was constantly thinking how her static pieces could develop and progress in to moving image works. I think her unique simple style would work well as animations.