UNSEEN ORDER

A solo show at Wall Box Gallery

2 Tower Place, South San Francisco

October 5 - December 1, 2024

In this exhibition of new work from the past year, much of it from printmaking residencies at Pilchuck Glass School and Kala Art Institute, I began with tree imagery, comparing the changing light of day with seasons of life, which turned into an exploration of invisible structures linking the trees with life itself. As the world’s events became bleaker, black made an unexpected appearance, slowly at first, then grew to fill the richly embossed surfaces of my prints in wide swaths. Spring brought banks of poppies shoving their way in along the edges of parking lots and roads, and their orange insistence was a reminder to me of a larger system. A chance glimpse of morning glories racing over chain link fences and rusting car skeletons gave me another gift of unexpected beauty and reaffirmed my awareness of an unseen order.

I am interested in how we sense and connect to that unseen order by suggesting a visible possibility. The tiny shapes combine to make a pattern but each one can shift the whole image. The repetition of shapes on the surface creates a rhythm that moves our eyes across the image, and the breaks in the pattern point to our imperfections. Through this process, I found that those imperfections became the most interesting aspect and actively followed the patterns as they began to morph and move, not held to the flatness of paper.

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Night Forest 1

BG23PR001_Gill_Bushra_Night Forest 1-det_embossed monotype_2023_22x30%22_72.jpg

BG23PR001_Gill_Bushra_Night Forest 1-side det_embossed monotype_2023_22x30%22_72.jpg

Night Forest 1

$600.00

embossed monoprint from lasercut wood panel

22x30", 2023

float-mounted and framed in 24x36" white frame

At my first printmaking residency at Pilchuck Glass School, I began with tree imagery, comparing the changing light of day with seasons of life, which turned into an exploration of invisible structures linking the trees with life itself. The entire series was a riff on color. Pilchuck is located inside a tree farm north of Seattle, so the night sky there is bright with stars and moonlight, but the trees make for dense wedges of shadow and shape.

When I began my second printmaking residency a few months later at Kala, the world’s events became bleaker and bleaker. Black made an unexpected appearance, slowly at first, then grew to fill the richly embossed surfaces of my prints in wide swaths in this series of considering the forest at night. However, the depth of the night reveals the most stars.

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