Living Concrete

Gillian first learnt how to use liquid photographic emulsion when she was teaching – “I fell in love with the idea of being able to take photography into new landscapes and made a series of wooden and limestone exterior pieces. Due to a change of circumstances, I moved from film photography to digital. Again, through teaching I stumbled upon a way of applying digital photographs to other substrates and I’ve now honed this specialism over a number of years.”

In 2018, she was commissioned by the PhotoEast Festival to work with her local refugee community, using the theme of ‘Belonging’. This evolved into a body of work whereby Gillian bonded her photographic portraits of the community onto large sheets of OSB board finishing them with graffiti paints. She then invited the participants to hand-write their stories directly onto them.

In May 2021, Gillian received a Develop Your Creative Practice grant from the Arts Council, England to further research the bonding of photographs on concrete surfaces for exterior display. As a result, she collaborated with Epson UK and in September exhibited with them at The Photo Show, displaying a 60cm x 45cm concrete example titled ‘A Lowestoft Man’. She worked towards upscaling the image and finding sealant solutions and in late November with support of Epson UK, East Suffolk Council and Anglia Water, successfully bonded and sealed a 166cm x 120cm version of the photograph at Ness Point in Lowestoft, the UK’s most easterly coastal location.