Bushra Gill

Bio
Bushra Gill finds order within the chaos of everyday life through art.

She was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and emigrated to Houston, Texas, with her family as a small child. Drawn to art from a young age, she graduated from Pratt Institute in 1994 with a BFA in sculpture. She has been awarded residencies at Pilchuck Glass School and Kala Art Institute.

Gill spent many years of working as a museum educator at various galleries and museums including The Museum of Modern Art, The Drawing Center and The Rotunda Gallery, while also working as a studio assistant to various artists including Maya Lin, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and Maria Elena Gonzalez. Currently living and working in northern California, Gill also serves on the board of Oakland Art Murmur and curates exhibitions. She is a member of the California Society of Printmakers and the Northern California Women’s Caucus for Art.
Statement:
Emigrating at a young age, I've always felt a part of things but was actually apart from most everything. So in my work, I think about connection, especially an underlying structure of everything around us that unites us to each other and to nature, time and space. Inspired by Islamic geometric patterns, I tessellate images from everyday life to create rich and complex surface structures in/with paint, print, and wood collage. In the process, dimensions of my subjects are simultaneously revealed and concealed, enabling me to explore the concept of things that are both present and veiled – like my hair, which I cover with a scarf in public. Using repeated geometric shapes that fit closely together creates a sense of order through which I understand the natural world and my personal experience. Rather than constraining my freedom, this approach provides a scaffold for experimenting with color, texture, and spatial possibilities.