Born and raised in the woods of Six Mile Valley near Missoula, Lillian has always held a passion for connecting stories with imagery. Growing up, she incessantly wrote and drew her own stories, filling books with play by play action and adventure. In her teen years she took up watercolor and was immediately hooked, and by sixteen was assisting and teaching watercolor workshops to children and adults. She continued this into adulthood, earning a BFA from the University of Montana. After school she took some years to begin her family and primarily used her artistic talents for commissioned illustrative pieces, including children's books, CD album covers, murals, and private collections. In the fall of 2013, she collaborated with her church to start the nonprofit art gallery E3 Convergence. E3 was begun as a mission to give back to local charities through art sales and musical events as well as be a home for emerging artists. She has also begun her own personal artwork again, discovering a new love for working on raw wood, and has been featured in multiple exhibits throughout Montana. She lives with her husband and three young children in Missoula.
Statement
I have always drawn inspiration from the power of visual narrative, and strive for my paintings do just that: attempt to tell a story in one single glance. Whether pulling ideas from dreams found the night before, or chronicling an original fancy, landscapes of drama and unease which the viewer can take and translate into their own version of a story suddenly emerge. Using dramatic gestures, colorful characters, and many times moody humor or sarcasm, each painting invites the viewer to jump outside of their reality and dive into another world hovering just on the brim of reality, a reality fraught with many of the issues of our daily world.
In recent years I've fallen in love with taking my skills in watercolor and using them on the surface of raw wood. It yields a similar process as watercolor paper, yet with more nuances and challenges that are exciting, and, at times, frustrating. I typically use whatever wood I find lying around: the garage after my husband's projects, a morning walk, the neighborhood on trash day, or a construction site in passing. Sometimes the imagery comes first and I hunt for the pieces to fit that image, but more often than not the wood speaks the story to me and begs to be told. The use of the wood's original color also gives each painting an intimate feel, as if the dreamlike subjects cannot be wholly unreal since they are embedded in the natural grains of the wood.
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