Gill Kippen - About
Gill Kippen
I’m a painter and falconer based in the Scottish Highlands and my work reflects the duality of these very different occupations. The hawk flying high represents freedom, but this is freedom completely dependent on its perfectly designed form and structure. My paintings comprise many brush marks, each one part of the whole. So as the hawk with his feathers, coloured, shaped and exactly placed.
These larger colourful canvases display beautifully on plain neutral walls and are proving popular additions to corporate art collections. They provide a ‘stand alone’ focal point for attention in public areas, business premises, atria, hospitals and colleges, drawing the eye to the detailed expressive brushmarks.
Medium size works would be creative additions to home decor or a personal art collection for buyers appreciating expressive colour and energy.
Mancunian, Fine Art graduate and Aesthetics postgrad who escaped academia 25 years ago for the freedom to fly hawks and paint in the beautiful north-east Highlands.
The introspection and confinement of studio practice directly contrasts with flying hawks free in open landscapes. This contrast is reflected in the different approaches I’ve taken to painting. My work ranges from abstract to figurative, but is always underpinned by an exploration of paint as a substance—its colour, texture, and surface.
The painting as a ‘made object’ is fundamental to my practice. My abstract oil paintings are often unframed on canvas, retaining the brush marks at the edges to emphasise the work as ‘an object in the world’, rather than ‘a window on the world’.
Painting, for me, is an exploratory process with no deliberate goal. The first mark is the jumping-off point, and each work evolves through many changes. The joy of bright colour and the varied textures made possible by oil paint make every painting an endlessly fascinating process of discovery.
Recently, my work has shifted from small figurative pieces to larger, looser, more gestural paintings—making the marks move. On completion, each mark has its place, just as each of the hawk’s feathers does.
Interpretation is left to the viewer. Titles are suggestive, not prescriptive.
Education
BA (Hons) Fine Art – Leeds
MA – Manchester
PhD Aesthetics – Manchester
Exhibitions
Making The Marks Move – Eden Court, Inverness (March 2025)
Royal Academy, London – Summer Exhibitions
Manchester Academy
Collections
Works held in private collections