Jylian Gustlin

Jylian Gustlin is an American painter associated with the 1960s—70s San Francisco Bay Area Figurative artists, their styles, and techniques. Although using traditional painterly techniques, her paintings explore the impact of new technologies on perception. She is inspired by a lifelong love of the San Francisco Bay Area Figurative artists, mathematical theories such as the Fibonacci sequence, the resonant tones of Latin phrases, African masks, and antique Roman vessels.

Life and education

Gustlin grew up in the Bay Area. She studied mathematics and computer science at San José State University and received a BFA from the Art Academy of San Francisco. She became a graphics programmer and art director for Apple Inc.

Working at a large technology company gave Gustlin an understanding of how patterns and layers on a computer screen might be reflected in actual paint layers. During the last twenty years as a full-time artist, she has designed and drawn many of her preliminary concepts on the computer. In addition to two-dimensional design, Gustlin uses three-dimensional modeling texture programs to produce character and movement of the figure through animation.

Art work

Figurative paintings

As a child, Gustlin drew paper dolls and their clothes for herself and her friends. She went on to create paintings of abstracted figures. She noted, "the figurative characters are frequently set in an alien-like landscape, temperamental and ominous, yet simultaneously depicting a sense of future self reflection."

Gustlin's figures are created with exaggerated long legs and large feet, because she believes it grounds the figures to the earth, like a tree growing long and tall, but always with roots attached to the ground. "The sketchy quality of her figures and heavy drips of pigment allows the viewer to better experience the hand of this artist, as she attacks her surfaces with a savvy guilelessness and assured fluidity."

Fibonacci

Gustlin is shaped by technology at her fingertips and her art reflects the in-depth knowledge of technological manipulation. Figures have always been an important part and the foundation of her art; however, she also creates abstract paintings with Fibonacci sequence numbers producing complex and layered paintings.

Approaching the figures from a mathematical and an emotional perspective, she incorporates the golden ratio, giving the finished piece the dynamic purity of expression.

She explores the relationship of Fibonacci numbers and how it intersects with the arts in every new design. However, when painting, free expression and personal experiences flow through the paintbrush and directly onto the canvas. One piece from the series "is layered with hundreds of paints, archival and metallic papers, and other mixed media...[and] is based on shapes created by the ascending mathematical pattern known as the Fibonacci sequence".

Entropy

The “Entropy” series began as she was exploring different types of mathematical equations and was heavily influenced by the word entropy, the literal meaning of which is: “life flows from low to high.”. While trail running, she observed the chaos in the forest and created designs in her mind. In her studio, she used that chaos of ideas and the reality of the landscape in the adaptions of her entropy paintings. She worked "with two-part epoxy resin, oil and acrylic paints, charcoal, wax, gold leaf, pastel and graphite on board". The series explores nature; the ever-changing environment from calm to chaos in a moment.

The “Fibonacci” series explores the structure of the world through mathematics—the calculated sequence of events. When uniting the figurative, “Fibonacci” and “Entropy” series, they become intertwined as she applies paints, colors, and lines. Gustlin perceives the world as interconnected and seamlessly designed, providing her ideas for the three series.

Personal life

Activist, singer, and friend of Gustlin, Joan Baez wrote,

“I am fortunate enough to have Jylian as a friend. I know her as exuberant, open, fun, funny, teasing, stubborn to the point of bullheadedness, and as a splendidly free spirit. She has psychic tendencies, drives like a maniac, and runs in the hills for hours on end, fair weather and foul. It is that same energy which directs her hands and body to paint. My guess is the actual painting is executed in the same trance she experiences as a runner. The results are expansive, like the hills, with the colors instinctively finding their place in the grand picture. She creates what I believe is “fine art.” She has been present to help me, a beginner, find ways to hurdle over stuck points, and struggle with her suggestion to “make as many mistakes as you can.”If that is the same as “take as many risks as you can,” it blends like a perfect palette with the rest of her life style, and the viewer is the beneficiary of the whole package.”

References

External links

• Official website