Interview with Artist Lola Gil 

AHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations?

Lola: Each painting I create begins from an experience or feeling left from experience. I have always worked from a personal point of view, I call it my therapy. However, I prefer my imagery or it's components to focus on the brighter side of the spectrum. As if I'm constantly seeing deeper and therefore healing with my process. I love sketching, but I have a hard time working on preliminary sketches for a painting. It's that feeling of forcing an idea that needs time to marinate before it shows itself. Because of this, I feel more like a vessel, who's job it is to carry out a plan I was drunkenly briefed on in the early stages. I will have a sort of foggy idea to begin with and draw that out right to panel. I'll paint the setting, or landscape, and let new visions place themselves along the process. It leaves me anxious always, but I don't know how to create otherwise. As far as themes and inspirations, much of that comes from being a mom and having daughters. I was really young when I began my family, so I held much of that childhood mentality close already. Through them I could revisit it from a point of view I can understand, now more so as an adult.
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AHC: What first drew you to art? Was there a specific moment in your life or turning point where it became clear to you that you were being called to create?

Lola: Yes, definitely. My dad brought me up creating, as he was a cartoonist and experimenter. But it struck me hard as a very young teen when things started to get uncomfortable in my family. My parents grew apart, yet lived together for years because they couldn't financially separate. It was very tough years of feeling depressed from living in an angry household. My grandfather got me a set of paints and brushes, and I learned that painting was a really great escape. It took longer than drawing, and required absolute focus. It was the greatest gift anyone ever gave to me.
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AHC: Who are some of your artistic influences? Is there anyone outside of the art world who has had a huge impact on your work or who just generally inspires you, writers, filmmakers, musicians etc? 

Lola: I was brought up with a dad who is a big kid, and loves cartoons and children's books. So in my earliest memories I had aspired to be like Edward Gorey or Maurice Sendak.. Stephen Gammel. Dr. Suess! My grandparents had an affinity for Norman Rockwell, who hung in nearly every room of the house so I have a very deep seeded love for him. As I got older I discovered Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Frida Kahlo. I very easily became obsessed with surrealism and symbolism. I lived in England for a few years and took time to travel and visit museums as often as I could. My interest in the Dutch masters, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Baroque, 20th century landscape began to grow and inspire. Seeing the technical ability through so many masterful works had me re evaluate my approach to painting. I wasn't challenging myself, and I was both depressed and inspired like I'd never been before. I also have a love for many modern artists who too make me think and feel such as Neo Rauch, Pieter Schoolwerth, James Kerry Marshall, David Salle, Robin F Williams, Eric White.. 
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AHC: You write "If not for the ability to paint, my voice might become just another static white noise." What inner expressions has painting tapped into for you, and what are the voices through which it has spoken? Do you view painting as a type of inner, psychical, poetic speech for your own personal life & journey?

Lola: I think I can wholeheartedly say painting has saved my life. I had a wonderful yet terrible childhood. I know each of us have a certain level of love and nurture that's needed early on, that for me wasn't fully met. I spent a lot of time alone, and throughout my years of growth was told I wasn't good and felt hopelessly flawed. I had a hard time relating to other kids, and changed schools a lot. I was also very shy/quiet and since I can remember very self conscious. However,the brighter side of that is that I was alone a lot in my grandparents house. They were toy collectors. Insane toy collectors. I was able to harvest my creative mind through years spent in their home. I felt safe and happy there, and always took myself as deep into my imagination as I possibly could. Thus, drawing and painting became my lifetime obsession. It helps me to physically purge, grow, and see. I'm not sure I would have been able to overcome so much sadness I stored as a lonely child, if not for painting. And now that I have just celebrated 12 years as a professional artist, I have learned how to use my abilities to transform words or feelings into a sort of poetic visual language. At least I hope so! My wish is to make viewers FEEL something, whether it's linear to what I'm painting about, or spark something new. I want people to eventually feel the way I do when I look at a moving piece of art.
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​AHC: The innocence of childhood, these are some of the feelings you try to convey in your work, what it is like to wonder openly and without limits as we do at that age, is it cathartic for you as you create from this very evocative and memory laden place? As you "sing through your brushes"?

Lola: It really is. I think because my dad was so wonderful at being a child minded adult, and I've been the same with my own, it's a place of imagination where nothing can hurt us. I want to always be there. I want to live in a fantasy, and disregard responsibility and reality. Of course that's very hard when you're raising kids. But this is my obsession. It's my guilty pleasure, and my career all rolled up into one. Art which withstands centuries will always tell you a story, and make you feel something that keeps you coming back for more. I know I have a long way to go. And I'm happy about that.
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AHC: What is the first work of art you encountered that took your breath away?

Lola: Gerard David's "Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor" in London's National Gallery. It brought tears to my eyes, I couldn't walk away.
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AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you'd like to tell people about?

Lola: My next solo exhibit will debut next spring, April 2017 at Merry Karnowski Gallery. I also have a wonderful book project in the works. 
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For more information visit www.lolafineart.com/ 

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