Bold colors, sharp lines, arrogant and unsure: Q & A with Atlanta's Robin Gillis

The Atlanta art scene is brimming with artistic talent. None more bold than painter Robin Gillis. Robin skillfully blends her love of art and psychology into intellectual works of real beauty.

One thing I can tell from Flickr is that you love your family and friends. Do they influence your work?
I am not sure I can say they influence my work, but people in general surely do. However, my friends and family influence how I do my work. I try my best not to let it interfere with needed time with my loved ones, especially if they need help. I will abandon my art to be there for them. Of course, I am always itching to come back to my work.

What does influence your work?
I am fascinated in studying how people live and the circumstances we have set-up for ourselves with institutions. I think the study of psychology has greatly influenced my work. I make some decisions based on consciousness of the academic study of our mind and sometimes ignoring that and just doing what I like.
Circumstances also affect my work. Like many artists, you only can do what your environment allows you to do. I work full-time as an artist, am finishing my degree, maintaining a household, dealing with family, and preparing to go to graduate school in Art Therapy in a few years. So I spread myself thin. I work on different types of projects all at once, so that if I only have 5 minutes one day, or 3 hours the next, I will work on different things. This may mean it takes longer to finish something, but I feel I end up producing more work that I am happy with.

I know that you're based here in Atlanta but did you receive your art training here? If not, where?
Atlanta has definitely been my main environment for discovering art. I grew up around Atlanta, so my grade school training was here along with my junior and senior years of my undergraduate degree. Georgia State University has an amazing conceptual-based program with successful working artists as our professors. I truly have learned a lot (and still learning) from them. However, I did begin my official college-level training in Valdosta, GA, a small college town on the border of Georgia and Florida. My foundation courses were tough in this school (as they should be). I feel I received a great education from the awesome professors during the 2 years I was down there.

Your work although abstract has a lot of feminine movement and a mixture of pastel and bold colors. How did this style develop?
Well, a lot of the work I think you are referring to is collaboration with another female artists, Krystal Cook (posted on Flickr). We made work based on pure chance, intuition, happening and response. So basically: no rules. I love bold colors, sharp lines, and high contrast. I also like working freely with organic shapes. These combinations can look sensual, free, and feminine. This style developed purely by letting all pre-conceived notions of what a piece would look like in the end. We just let the work speak to us. It is a satisfying way to work.
I employ some of these methods with my own personal work. I have this natural opposition to representational content. I feel abstract, non-objective work can reveal something completely new that has never existed, and it can be different for every person. There’s something incredibly exciting about that for me.

What is your collection of work trying to say about you?
I think my work says I am arrogant and unsure at the same time. I believe I am intensely interested in the conceptual while at the same time, I just like bold colors. I feel there is a duality of refinement with artlessness in my work.

Are your speaking as a women or person within this mixed society?
I feel I am speaking as a person in a mixed society. I can't say being a woman does not influence my work and my choices. However, I hope to be understood as an artist, not specifically a female artist.

Are you from an artistic background?
I did not grow up with a heavy influence of art, but I think that is natural in the family. I have a family member who was a painter and graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design. My mother used to draw and paint in her youth and was quite good. I would argue my older sister had greater natural skill than I did, but she just didn't choose to pursue it as a focus in her life. So, I guess natural ability was there in my house but not a lot of emphasis on art. I did create my own artistic background. My mother always encouraged me to draw and do what I loved.

How does your family feel about you pursuing this career path?
My family completely supports my choice to be an artist (well, I am not sure it was a choice). My mother always has told me to go to college and pursue whatever would make me happy. Although, I am pretty sure none of them understand what I do at all! But that's okay.

What does the future hold for Robin Gillis?
I hope in the future I have expanded my work, visually, geographically and conceptually. I want to speak to more people through my pieces. I feel my artwork is expanding from 2-D pieces to graphs, performance art, and installations. In addition, I am going to attend Graduate school for Art Therapy in a few years where I can study the perfect mesh of my favorite things: Art, Psychology, and helping people. The future looks pretty exciting to me.

I see that you are selling some of your work online, Etsy specifically. Is this a sign of the times for the modern artist?
Absolutely. Every aspect of our lives has in some way been influenced by technology and the internet. Now, you can shop artwork from around the world! However, I do think there is a divide. The same work I sell online is not exactly the same work I want to show in a gallery or public (live) setting. These are different kinds of environments. I think they each have their purpose, and as a contemporary artist, I need both.

What is your favorite medium? What other mediums have you worked with and why have you abandoned them?
I’ve worked with all kinds of media. I try and avoid oil paints because of the toxicity and limiting aspects of the medium. I am definitely a mixed media artist. I love working with different materials and making them work (or not work) together. My favorites are ink, watercolor, gouache, pen, acrylic, wax (en caustic), paper, mylar, metallic, and the list goes on.

What is your favorite color in your day to day life and which is your favorite to work with?
This is a loaded question. You asked a visual artist to pick ONE color! Impossible. Personally, I love purple (I have purple eyeglasses) to wear. However, I don't use purple that often in my own work. If this was a silly questionnaire, I’d answer green and orange.
I use a lot of yellow and black in my art. You know how you see people who look like their pet? Well, I have yellow hair and wear a lot of black. So goes that saying "life imitates art more than art imitates life" by Oscar Wilde.

Where can we find your art pieces locally? Do you have an event in the works where our readers can stop by for a closer look?
I am not currently represented by a specific gallery and want to keep it that way for now. However, I am working on exhibitions all over the country all the time. You can find where and when my work is showing @ http://www.robingillis.blogspot.com.

Thanks you again Robin for being so open and sharing your work with us. Do you have any closing words for our readers?
Yes! I know we all are so busy with our lives however I encourage you to try and make art a part of it. There are tons of ways to get involved. There are kid’s events at museums, gallery hopping, art openings, art fairs, and the list goes on. If you can't get out, you can show support online by visiting artist blogs, forums, artist websites, following on twitter, becoming a fan of artists on Facebook, and the list goes on here as well. Artists have more of an influence on our lives than we realize, and it is very important for them to have community support.