Always Been Told invites the viewer into a lush, timeless world that is at once familiar and fantastical, a dreamlike utopia filled with longing. Melancholic and mystical, Gilliams’ paintings address themes of transition, duality, desire, and memory through iconography drawn from both European and Eastern storytelling. The pieces are assemblages of both oil and acrylic painting with moments of collaged fiber-work, combining varied materials that reference medieval tapestries.
Oscillating between abstraction and representation, Gilliams weaves colors and textures with both allegorical symbols and human figures. Gilliams work speaks to what he calls a “collective memory,” adeptly layering recognizable imagery into his own created myths and visual poems. Bodies hint at references to Greek and Roman imagery, but Gilliams reimagines his forms in vibrant colors and gestures that curve, arch, and dive into dreamlike depths.
Gommaar Gilliams was born in 1982 in Lier, Belgium. He graduated in visual arts from LUCA School of Arts in Brussels and holds a Masters degree in Painting from PXL College in Hasselt. Gilliams has exhibited wildly across Europe as well as in solo exhibitions at De Buck Gallery in New York and the La Brea Residency in Los Angeles.
