In the most deliberate way, since his return to New England, the nature of Gill's work - its medium, metaphor, syntax, meaning - has been rooted in nature, particularly the grown-over tangle that is rural New England. But it is equally rooted in the evidence of time, of life cycles, of human labor and art. In 1998, Gill built a studio adjoining his house. Initially, he experimented by making prints of the end grains of the lumber he was using—four-by-fours, two-by-fours and eight-by-eights. But, soon enough, he turned to wood in its more natural state, intrigued by the wonky edges of the slices he’d saw from tree trunks. The artist has attempted to draw the growth rings of trees. “You can’t do it better than nature,” he says. Exhibition of Contemporary Sculpture, Samuel S.T. Chen Art Center, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT

Landscape: Seen and Remembered, curated by Janie Paul, organized by Organization of Independent Artists, The Police Building, NYC The gallery is in the West End at 424 Findlay Street in Cincinnati, Ohio. The exhibition opens on Thursday, September 28, with reception for the artists from 5-9 pm. Some artists in the exhibition will be present for the opening reception. Bryan’s work will be featured in the upcoming exhibition at the Solway Gallery entitled “Tree Conscious” opening September 28th, 5-9 pm. Nature Photo Frames Activity - This resource is ideal for younger children who would still like to explore and get creative. Just like with the wind chime, they will have to find all sorts of natural materials to design their craft.

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BNG: The stories that come to mind are about narrowly escaping injuries from falling trees or tree branches. That’s why we call them “widow makers.” Dendrology, the study of trees, a science that has given us historical data about our global environment and forever-changing climate. Branching Out: The Trees as Inspiration, Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT Your class can explore their adventurous side by looking outdoors for all their equipment, then express their artistic side when they’re ready to create their own masterpiece. It can help them develop planning and organisation skills. This resource also asks children to look at other artists’ work for inspiration, so they can learn how to research effectively. Gill was born in 1961 in Hartford, Connecticut and was raised on a farm in Granby, Connecticut. [1] He attended Westminster School and graduated in 1980. [2] In 1984 he graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts, [1] with a focus on glassblowing. [3] He moved to Italy to learn stone carving before returning to the United States to study at the California College of the Arts. [3] He graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in 1988. [1] Career [ edit ]

Gill's work has been displayed at the New Britain Museum of American Art and DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and he was commissioned to create installations for Expo 2005 in Japan and the World Financial Center in New York. He was a fellow of the California Arts Council and twice received grants from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. [1] He was profiled in Martha Stewart Living in 2012 and was the focus of a documentary video produced by the magazine. [5] Personal life [ edit ] Tree Conscious, an exhibition of twenty-one artists illustrating the distinctive beauty of trees through still life and portraiture. It will include a diverse range of media spanning the early twentieth century to contemporary art from Cincinnati, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, and other international locations. The selection of two- and three-dimensional work will highlight the tree’s historical significance as a provider of sustenance and shelter throughout time; as a metaphor for growth, humanity, monumentality, and enduring life force. BNG: I had a studio in New York City for a summer and had exhausted the money I received from a California drawing fellowship grant. I wasn’t to far from where I grew up and there was lots of space where I could continue my studio work. Something [happens] as you peer into these boles. They confound time, simultaneously offering diachrony and synchrony, to use those nearly antiquated words. You look across all of the tree’s living years, exposed at one. And yet, as you move from the center to the periphery — to the final present of that individual tree — you’re also looking along time, along the succession of growth cycles that end in what is, after all, the death mask of a plant, the sustained rigor mortis of a maple, ash, spruce, locust, and other species. Gill has received two Connecticut Individual Artist Grants, is a California Arts Council Fellow and in 2005 he received the Artist Resource Trust, from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. He has shown his sculpture, drawings and installations at many exhibitions and galleries across the United States. Gill is the author of “ Woodcut“, (New York, 2012, Princeton Architectural Press)

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After 16 years, however, he came home to the very farm in the western Connecticut hills on which he grew up, which he has since bought and converted into a home and studio complex. For all the study and experience he gathered in his travels, in the end it was returning to New England, to its woods and its history both geological and anthropological that gave him his voice as a sculptor. It was from this place that he first made art that connected to the deeper roots of his sensibility. That first work composed of 42 Christmas trees suspended upside-down, in echelon, in situ, above the floor of the forest contained many of the elements that would come to characterize his mature work as a sculptor. For the first time, says Gill, "I wasn't making something for somebody to buy. I wasn't making something to please somebody else. And I [certainly] wasn't 'making it big, painting it red, throwing it in the field and calling it art.' The only people who saw [this work] were people I brought to it, or who stumbled upon it, like my family when they cross-country skied or walked in the woods. It was very uplifting, very eerie."