Gillian David is an artist based in the idyllic Cotswold countryside.

In my practice, I find myself deeply drawn to the natural world, endlessly inspired by its beauty and richness. I work with local materials and in harmony with the land, embarking on a transformative exploration through ceramics and painting to seek a sense of at-home-ness. Utilising these mediums, I immerse myself in the essence of a place, often integrating natural pigments or clay sourced directly from the land. My artistic process becomes a dialogue with the landscape, a dance of colours, and forms inspired by the ancient wisdom inherent in the environment.

Over the Changing Hills

My inspiration comes from an inner response to local land and seascapes that I encounter in Ashdown Forest and on the South coast. Delicious colour combinations catch my eye, particularly as they quickly alter in the play of light. I am captured by atmospheric effects in the panorama of ever changing scenes. I use a narrow palette of colour seeking subtle changes of tone and hue.

In the Nature of Clay

Here I explore the deep, tactile relationship between humanity and the earth. Each hand-built form emerges from the raw material of clay — shaped, pressed, and coaxed into being through touch. Inspired by natural forms and the quiet intelligence of the landscape, these works reflect on how we connect to the ground beneath us: as makers, as bodies of the same matter, and as participants in the cycles of growth and transformation.

Colour Dance

Forms and colours flow intuitively as layer after layer of colour is applied. Spontaneity and playfulness is at the for front welcoming the surprises that emerge and simplifying the subject to rhythm and colour expression.

A Marching of Flowers

The cycle of a flower as it lulls into Autumn. The richness of colour fading into the warmth of the earth. These rhythms move the oils over the paper to create a marching of flowers.

Light and Dark

Charcoal smudged with an un-mediated hand and finger contact with the paper produces an airy quality where light and shadow can blend and merge. Dreamy images emerge in-between reality and imagination.