About the Artist

McCall Gilfillan

McCall is well known across the province as an art and craft tutor in ceramics, kiln fired glass and mosaic. She has worked with a wide variety of sculpture projects and installations for charities and community groups.  She particularly enjoys working with mental health groups, a sector with which she has significant experience.

Her new work encompasses her love of both sculptural ceramics and oil painting. The pieces are designed as objects of contemplation exploring the patterns of formation and erosion on the geological textures on the North Coast.

Regarding this new work she says:

“During times of radical change in my life I have always been drawn to walk the beach. I focus on the patterns in the sand changing and rearranging with each tide contrasted with the patterns in the cliffs and basalt formations above also constantly changing and rearranging but to a much slower rhythm. It gives me a sense of continuity and perspective that has steadied me through many things knowing I am a small part of this pattern as well. It has let me breathe as I feel the sea inhale and exhale around me.”

McCall’s focus on geology, texture and pattern are evident across the different mediums she employs. Her smaller pieces are elegant forms in white ceramic inscribed or ‘scared’ with snippets of text from poems then pit fired in nests of driftwood, seaweed and other organic material gathered from the beach in front of her studio. The surfaces are silky smooth and coloured by the mineral rich smoke of the burning organics. Her newest ceramic pieces bring a sharp contrast evoking coastal basalt formations, curvaceous forms wearing their textured surfaces proudly like adornment. Her paintings draw the viewer into the texture of the rock juxtaposed against the movement of sand and water. They are images to take in slowly and return to again and again.