MUNTHE ART MONDAY: GILL BALDWIN

Please introduce yourself and tell us about what you do.

I’m a former sculptor and installation artist turned painter. I’m originally from Canada but I’ve lived in Rotterdam, the Netherlands for the past several years. My paintings focus on everyday still moments of pause and contemplation and I love painting interiors. Often everyday household scenes fascinate me and they appear in my work often.

Gill is wearing our ROCKY SKIRT, ARISSA KNIT and SUSSIMA BLAZER.

Could you explain more about how being a woman has affected your career?

I’ve noticed a difference in how I am treated depending on the medium I’m working in. In the past I made kinetic sculptures, often I would get asked if I made the work myself, or if I knew how my own sculpture operated, which of course I knew how they worked. I also have had a few comments about how I was one of the few women in the kinetic sculpture space, which I don’t think is true. There are plenty of women working in kinetic sculpture. I’ve also been explained how my sculpture works by other men visiting exhibitions I’ve been in. Now that I’m painting there is an absence of all of that extra noise that I’m enjoying.

Can you name some other female (artist) that inspires you and explain why they do so?

Lois Dodd, is an American painter who at 98 years old still paints everyday and is fantastic. Her paintings are of what’s in front of her, gorgeous simple compositions that vibrate off the wall with color when you see them in person. If I can live to be 90 and paint everyday that's a life well lived. Also my mum Diana Baldwin is a print maker. She inspires me in how she grinds away every day constantly learning new things and she is getting so good, it's really exciting to see.

What has been the most challenging aspect of being a woman in the arts?

I think in the arts as well as any profession the challenge for women is often to be taken seriously. Lois Dodd has a series of paintings of flowers that are fantastic, that she didn’t get around to painting until she was in her 70’s because she was afraid to be perceived as one of those “lady flower painters”. It’s interesting to me that Dodd didn’t pursue a whole subgenre of her work for the very valid and real fear of not being taken seriously.

Gill is wearing our SUSSIMA BLAZER.

What would you like people to notice in your artwork?

When I see an artwork that I love or that I connect with, it feels like just that, a connection, a magnetism, you are drawn in and you want to stay there. I love that feeling of encountering and experiencing art that I love and so I can only strive to make work that does that for myself and hopefully it does the same for others. I want my work to be unapologetically beautiful and draw someone in.

Gill is wearing our ROCKY SKIRT and ARISSA KNIT.