Gillen creates undulating surfaces that bind and hold the painted form,  inviting the viewer to contemplate the relationship between structure and fluidity. Her current body of work focuses on materiality, abstraction, and nuanced color relationships. She uses fabric to amplify movement and tension in her work. As fabric folds and bends into a dynamic canvas, color and light are refracted in new ways. "I trap color within the form but allow it to breath and refract light through the pleated surface. The folds and seams of the surface abstract the shapes laid therein. The final works don’t rely on narrative, or easily decipherable imagery, but rather our sense experience" - Carrie Gillen