Gallery

Detail, ‘I Am the Shaper’

If you like the look of any piece here, just drop me an email at jill@jilltattersall.co.uk   I can make a date for you to see it, tell you more, or simply send  further details.  Each piece is a complete one-off: no prints or copies.

Origins and Stories

I was once a medievalist, teaching early French literature.  This led me to the creation myths: Norse, Eastern, European, Aboriginal, Darwin’s Tree of Life and the Philogenetic Tree (science), Tree of Knowledge and Jesse’s Tree (Bible), Yggdrasil (mythology) and so many more….
I’m  overawed by early cave and rock art, made long ago with the simplest most elemental means. People looked up into the night sky just as we do and must have asked the same questions about their place in the universe..

Coasts and Maps

I used to live as far from the sea as you can get on this island. But like most of us I was fascinated by coastlines and the sea.  I moved, and till recently lived on the South Coast,  where the light is fabulous .  I  try to avoid trite seaside scenes and ration myself to a few sea-related pieces a year.

Town and Country

Subjects just crop up: loaves of bread, a stretch of pavement, a passing scene, reflections in a train window. Often I use my own hand-made cast or moulded cotton paper. I then build up intense colour with washes of paints, inks, dyes and pigments. Labour-intensive, highly individual.  The paper has a seductive, unpredictable surface – I like the danger and uncertainty this brings. You can wreck a promising painting at any moment.

Abstracts and Patterns

Serendipity.  I’m obsessed with pattern on every scale: natural and man-made.  Science  constantly provides new examples.  Force meets force. Something happens.  From this universe of patterns my urge towards abstraction grows – a desire to convey the sense of things rather than just describe or mimic them.

Botanica

Paintings large and small, some commissioned, about  favourite plants and flowers. I love plants for their intricate and varied shapes and colours and – of course – fruits. Medieval herbals  intertwine text, images and commentary. I’ve tried to find my own way of approaching these subjects.

Selected archive

moon painting       Harvest Moon (sold)

Here are some of the hundreds of paintings I’ve sold over the last twenty years or so, some in their new homes. If they sell through a gallery,   I often  don’t know where paintings go.  So it’s really great to receive photos  from  new owners and sometimes  meet them.

Work in preparation or newly-finished,  paintings out at exhibitions, frames being made; in fine weather, papermaking.   That’s life at The Wolf at the Door. You’re welcome to visit ; let me know  if there’s anything special you wish to see.