GILLEAN WHITAKER SWA, SFP, NDA (Society of Women Artists. - Society of Floral Painters, National Diploma in Design)
Gillean is an accomplished artist of many years, since at the age of five when she won a National Newspaper Childrens’ Painting Competition and her design and painting tuition at the Cheltenham College of Art.
Gillean’s expertise in handling watercolour and acrylic and her draughtsmanship and ability to create wonderful pictorial design, has been fully recognised by many groups of discerning selectors of Works-of-Art for Prestigious Exhibitions.
Guilt and Silver Medals at the Royal Horticultural Society shows, London. Gillean’s work is in art collections world wide.
Not having a formula Gillean’s subjects are free to dictate the individual style and treatment needed in each case.
Her versatility and breadth of subjects and treatment must be a rare accomplishment among the artistic community.
For the first time Gillean's work, here illustrated, is available as prints of varying sizes and at a much reduced price from her originals and will enable many more people to enjoy Gillean’s very special paintings.
Gillean’s work has been selected by art experts from, sometimes many thousands of hopeful entrants to Britons top exhibitions:
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London
The Royal Water Colour Society Exhibition, Bankside, London
The Sunday Times, Singer & Friedlander Exhibition, The Mall Gallery, London
It was remarked by a senior artist member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists during a critique by him of many artists’ work, that Gillean's Portrait painting had a Spiritual Quality.
Indeed this could be said of much of her work.
It has also been said by many visitors to her private exhibitions that it was as if there were several artists’ work on show as the styles and treatment of her many different subjects Flowers, Animals, Birds, Portraits Still Life, Land and Seascapes, each had individual treatment. Paper, medium and style vary according to her perceptive preference. Watercolour is invariably used for her Portraits, for instance, for it’s delicacy in achieving flesh tones, even though it is a more difficult medium in which to make corrections.
Gillean has never developed a painting formula, which means her work has great freshness and individuality. A painting formula locks a certain sameness to each painting and the subject is often made to fit to the formula.