About Gill Watkiss
Gill Watkiss for a very long time lived on the Penwith peninsula's north coast, where it reaches the Atlantic. America is the closest landfall after the Scilly Isles, and the winds that blow there are from the west. It is a world away from the surfing beaches, theme parks, and picture postcards. This is the Cornwall of the tin coast, of the mining villages with their terraces of granite cottages, and of a people whose only real memorials are decrepit castles and engine houses from dead industries. In Gill Watkiss paintings, the weather is omnipresent and never-ending. The figures strain against the sea breeze while shopping in the square of the market town of St. Just or ascending the lane from Cape Cornwall. A bride's veil is whipped above her head by the same wind, as is a headscarf that flies like a flag.