Gill Bustamante

My name is Gill Bustamante and I paint large contemporary landscape and seascape paintings in oil on canvas. They are mostly inspired by the Sussex landscapes I see around me where I live. My painting style is a fusion of Impressionist, Semi-abstract, Art Nouveau and something I term ‘memory impressionism’. This is where I go walking somewhere rural, look at and absorb the things I see and experience, and then come home and try to capture an 'echo' of the place from memory, including any wildlife I may have seen. I completed a fine art degree in Brighton in 1983 and I have painted since I was three. It always makes me happy along with cake, bunnies, driving erratically, BBC 6 music and totally irreverent comedy. Website: www.gillbustamante.com

I am a professional artist based in East Sussex who creates large semi abstract landscape, seascape and wildlife paintings in oil on canvas. My painting style is very distinct and fuses art-nouveau, impressionist and semi-abstract techniques with traditional portraiture that reflect my love of nature, animals, birds and the flora and fauna of the landscapes around me. My main working method has been the development of a painting style I term ‘memory impressionism’. This method involves going walking somewhere, looking at and absorbing the things I see and experience, and then returning home to my studio to try and capture an echo or essence of the place from memory - including any wildlife I may have seen. By this method I can capture essences and echoes of places and the feeling I have about them. I love the ancient landscapes of England and my paintings often reflect the spiritual elements that such landscapes have.BioAs a child, I taught myself to draw and paint by copying pictures from wildlife and horse books on an almost daily basis and the skills I acquired were added to throughout school and art college. However, my first real introduction to life as a working artist began on leaving art college when I discovered that the Brighton art galleries and the local job centre did not, at once, sign me up for a glittering career as an artist. In the job centre, when I informed my consultant that I had a Fine Art degree, the lady laughed sympathetically and then offered me a job as a chambermaid (which I took).In the art galleries I visited, I was told I needed to be an ‘emerging’ or ‘mid-career’ artist in order for them to be interested. I tried to convince them I had, in fact, ‘emerged’ at age 3 but my reasoning failed to impress and so like millions before me I discovered the well-known issue of needing to be ‘a name’ before I was ‘a name’.However, regardless of not winning the Turner prize or being Picasso, I continued to draw and to paint and regularly took part in or organized exhibitions where I sold work or was given commissions. In the 1990s I met an art agent who travelled the area selling animal portrait commissions and I became one of the artists he represented which was excellent experience as it demanded I learn some formal portrait painting techniques. Commissions continued as my main income source until around 2010 when I first began to sell art online. The success I had on this gave me the opportunity to spend more time developing new ideas and techniques and, for the first time in my career, I painted for my own pleasure, eventually developing a distinctive style of my own. I am a self-representing artist as although I am happy to work with galleries and agents occasionally, I prefer to remain in control of my own creativity.EducationI have A-levels in art and art history from Erith Tech in 1977-79. Then I took a foundation art course in Chelsea 1979-1980 and then a Fine Art degree in Brighton completing in 1983. I am also a trained adult education art teacher (certificate 730)Artistic SkillsMy main medium is oil paint. I love the smell and texture and mess of it. However, I am also an accomplished watercolourist and drawer (these I teach regularly to supplement my income and because I like teaching). I can also mural paint in acrylic paint and have 7 years’ experience painting on furniture for exclusive nursery designers, Dragons of Walton Street. My most consistent earner, before I became a full-time independent artist, was in painting animals and people in watercolours, drawings or oils. There are over 300 homes with my portraits in them.