Will Gill

Christopher William (Will) Gill (born July 5, 1968) is a Canadian visual artist known for his wide-ranging works in sculpture, painting, photography, video and installation art.

Born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Gill received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1991 from Mount Allison University, where he studied sculpture and printmaking.

After an inspirational journey around the Avalon Peninsula in 1996, Will Gill decided to move to St. John's, Newfoundland, where he was soon offered an opportunity to work as an apprentice at the bronze casting foundry located at the Boreal Sculpture Park and Garden Foundry, run by sculptor Luben Boykov and environmentalist John Evans.

"'There was something about the people and place when I came here that seemed just perfect for the way I am, the way I like to live,' he says. 'The temperament of the people, the generosity and so on. And it was that that made me think right away: this is it. I fell in love right away.'" He has lived in St. John's ever since.

Because of his apprenticeship, and later his work as a technician at the foundry, Gill's early sculptural works often incorporated elements of cast bronze, along with wood and other natural materials.

"It is informed by contrasts and juxtapositions, the most obvious being the dichotomy between nature and culture, but he also plays with that of the traumatic and the monotonous, the exuberant and the upsetting and, of course, the man-made and the natural."

In 1997 he moved to St. John's, Newfoundland.

Line of Green Stars (1998) exemplifies these characteristics.

"Interestingly, Gill never cuts a tree for his sculptures; instead, he recycles and reclaims fallen trees and dead wood that he finds in the forest or salvages from building demolition sites. An example of such recycling is the wood coming from the infamous Mount Cashel orphanage ground. The main building was levelled four years ago, many years after the scandal of sexual and physical child-abuses by Christian Brothers. Trees were also cut down to put up a supermarket. The maple the artist recovered from the site is found in his work titled Workhorse (1998), permanently installed at the Boreal Sculpture Park in St. John's. Hanging from the maple beam are some 500 rectangular pieces of birch on bronze rods. While the birch and bronze elements reflect each other by their similarity in size and shape, these two parts of the sculpture present opposing qualities.

The marks left by the chainsaw stand as witness of the artist's intentions while conferring roughness, solidity, and strength to the piece.

In contrast, the mirror image hung on bronze rods that is animated when the wind blows is delicate and lyrical in feeling."

Gill has a particular fascination with large scale works of art.

In 2001, Gill attended the prestigious Vermont Studio Center where he was an artist-in-residence in sculpture.

While there he created Automated Butterfly Catching Unit (2001), a large sculptural work, now in the collection of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, previously exhibited at The Rooms provincial gallery.

The site-specific work Lighthouse (2003), constructed in the woods at the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ontario, is 18 feet in height.

"In this work Gill created a protection device usually situated on the physical boundaries of water and land. Traditionally a lighthouse's purpose is to warn of nature's destructive force - to protect people from danger; Gill's lighthouse is intended to do the opposite. His creation can be perceived as a warning sign to protect the old trees, a natural heritage, against industrialization, as well as suggesting a historical link connecting Simcoe County's past, its present, and its future".

Gill was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award, Canada's preeminent contemporary art award, in 2004, 2006 and 2023.

"Like many university students, Gill sought out a new setting for an opportunity to grow as an art student. 'I studied sculpture at Mount Allison University because I had grown up in Ottawa and needed to be in a new environment,' he says. 'I had no idea what to expect from a BFA program, but I knew that being creative excited me. I ended up majoring in sculpture and printmaking because they were both mediums that relied heavily on materials and processes: often it was not about what you ended up with, but how you got there that mattered most. I liked troubleshooting and figuring out how things could be put together. The qualities of materials fascinated me.'"

Cloud (2006), a whimsical sculptural work also 18 feet tall, was named as one of the 25 greatest works of art ever made in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Gill's paintings, which he creates in small and sometimes very large scale sizes in his private studio, have been described as "simplistic and layered...invitingly crafted and coloured."

"Cemetery Park (2008) is as frisky and playful as Gum Machine (2008) (both acrylic and collage on panel), with the tombstones and crosses of the former as animated and full of bouncy colours as the latter's gumballs. Others pinwheel and spring with clouds of vanilla and spokes of red and orange. Their energy vaults from the walls."

"Some of Gill's notable works have drawn upon the Newfoundland landscape. In the 2009 performance Cape Spear, he tossed fibreglass-encased glow sticks off of the easternmost point of North America using a catapult."

"The 2009 installation Bareneed is a replica of a cast-iron bathtub that Gill saw on the bottom of the ocean floor while sea-kayaking near the titular coastal community (the artist himself has noted that the St. John's setting has been key to his art production)."

"For his 2009 work Cape Spear, he used a massive catapult to launch glowing orbs off the tip of North America's easternmost point (Cape Spear) and into the ocean. The work was documented with photo and video. He's also often inspired by his adopted home of Newfoundland: his 2009 installation Bareneed is a replica of an old-fashioned bathtub that Gill saw on the ocean floor while sea-kayaking in the coastal community of Bareneed."

His newer painted works, such as Smokestack/Flower (2010) and Black Water (2012) continue this theme.

Gill's paintings have been exhibited locally, as well as nationally and internationally.

In recent years, Gill has expanded his artistic scope by adding performance, video, and photography to his repertoire.

Firefly #1 (2011) is a still image taken from Gill's video work Firefly (2011), commissioned for the Electric Speed project which commemorated the anniversary of the birth of Marshall McLuhan.

The concept for the video "came about through a kind of meditation on the nature of contemporary communication in Newfoundland.... and the images of light moving through the picture frame were meant to convey signals frantically going back and forth as word spread about an accident. Cell phone signals perhaps".

In his haunting installation, High Water, at Toronto's Nuit Blanche 2012, "ghostly objects float on the surface of a small pond in the shadow of Roy Thompson Hall, like lost possessions after a disaster - a baby onesie, a bicycle, a gas canister".

Gill then captured the eerie scene in series of photographs.

In March 2013, Gill was selected from a group of 31 artists to create an indoor public art installation in the lobby of a new office building in St. John's, set to open in the spring of 2014 - the first private juried art commission in the province awarded to a local artist.

From June to November 2013 he exhibited along with artist Peter Wilkins as part of an official Collateral Project at the 2013 Venice Biennale.

Bicycle/Leaf (2013) is one such image.

In 2013, Peter Wilkins and Will Gill were officially selected by curator Massimiliano Gioni to exhibit at an official Collateral Event of the 55th Venice Biennale.

Organised by the Terra Nova Art Foundation, the exhibition was titled About Turn: Newfoundland in Venice, Will Gill & Peter Wilkins.

The exhibition was co-curated by Mireille Eagan and Bruce Johnson.

It was on display at Galleria Ca'Rezzonico until November 24, 2013.

In 2014, 351 Water Street, a new office tower in downtown St. John's, Newfoundland, was opened.

It features Gill's Black Island Punt (2014) on permanent display in the lobby.