Chris Gill is an abstract, improvisational action painter, who lives with his wife, the artist, Jane Goldman, in the Mixit Artist Cooperative in Somerville, Massachusetts. Chris is also a musician and a psychotherapist — with 30 years of practice in the field. Chris played drums in several bands in the San Francisco and Boston new wave and punk rock scenes in the late 70’s and early 80’s, including Ultrasheen and Vitamin. His primary media are watercolor and gouache. He paints on large rolls of paper, which he often cuts up later to make different size paintings. Chris rarely touches a paintbrush to the paper, though he uses one to splatter, drip and mix paint. Most of the time he spills, pours, squirts and drips paint on the paper from containers of various types and sizes. He also uses a variety of imprinting techniques, whereby he folds and rolls sections of the freshly painted paper onto itself, creating layered and textured effects. As a lifelong musician who plays the drums, Chris tends to paint very rhythmically. He considers much of his work to be a kind of visual music. He sees it as a birthing process, in which he finds great excitement and joy in the discovery aspect of how each painting, as a unique, organic creation, grows and evolves as a natural entity. Chris does not paint figuratively per se, but sees his painting as about nature, the world, and the universe. Chris states that he “channels nature” through his painting processes. which mirror those of nature, and his paintings often have a naturalistic look.
