White Hart’s Summer Valley

As a child, Gill Bustamante taught herself to draw and paint by copying animals and horses out of books on an almost daily basis. In 1979 Gill completed a foundation course at Chelsea and then a degree course at Brighton where, in 1983, she graduated with a fine art degree in sculpture.  She then worked in a studio making sculptures with an architect for clubs and hotels. On moving to East Grinstead in the late 80’s, Gill Bustamante began painting for an art agent that specialised in animal, people and bespoke portraits. Struggling to divide her time between art, raising a child, work commitments and other obligations, it was not until Gill was almost 50, and in her words “menopausal and a bit mad”, that she finally had enough time to experiment as an artist. Gill has a great love and respect for all artists and art forms and established recently that her own message was simply one of being able to provide temporary escape to people and hopefully one that will uplift them.  As a scientologist, Gill Bustamante is familiar with the spiritual being infinitely more valuable than the material. Gill enjoys painting things that are reminiscent of real places but with something else enchanting them a little. Part of the creation process for Gill is to visit a place and walk.  As she does so, she listens to the sounds of the birds, insects and animals that have remained unchanged for thousands of years.  Gill paints largely from memory with the aid of photos for the wildlife featured in them. Of her goal, Gill says “My ultimate goal is to one day paint something so captivating that I will not be able to look away.  Then I want to disappear into it with an inexhaustible supply of cake and an incubus that looks like Jonny Depp never to be seen again…”