Connacht Sentinel
Tuesday 4th Dec 2001
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Tiger in the Sky
Jill Teck's new exhibition inspired by a trip Down Under.
Tiger in the Sky, an exhibition of new paintings by Jill
Teck, has opened in the Town Hall Theatre.
This year, Jill Teck went on a trip to Australia to spend
several months with her family. On the way she visited Thailand, Laos,
and Bali, and on her way home to Ireland, Fiji.
Jill Teck feels that this journey will have long reaching
influences and inspiration for her work, and for this show, with the time
available, she says she has only been able to make a beginning.
As she is coming back to oil painting after a long absence,
she felt the need to experiment a bit, and there is quite a variety of
work.
Jill Teck has a great interest in symbolism, and several of
the paintings come from her unconscious reaction to animals or sculptures
that she met on her way, such as Phet a very special tiger whom she met
in Laos.
Others derive from her fascination at what is seen. On
the other side of our familiar world, lies another place. Particularly
in Australia, she was interested in the connection of place and person,
and how the one influenced the other, and each contained beneath the surface.
Each painting derives from something seen, something noticed, something
felt, if only an atmosphere or colour.
Jill Teck has allowed them to grow in their own way, in order
to explore these connections. She hasn't yet had time to do any work about
Bali, it almost needs another trip and show of it's own. "When I
began this exhibition", Jill Teck says, "I had no idea how it
would turn out, and it has been great fun"
Jill Teck is well known not just in Galway for her many
previous exhibitions, her donations of work to University College Hospital,
her book of self portraits about Leukaemia, 'Becoming
The Tree', and its adaption as a dramatised presentation.
Jill Teck is becoming increasingly recognised in Ireland
and internationaly not only through exhibiting her work but also through
her website JillTeck.com designed by EireInSite
the international award winning Art Site developers.
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Irish Examiner
Tuesday 27th February 2001
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The perfect blend of technology and true Technique
A former welder turned website designer and a Connemara
based artist getting over a life treathening illness have between them
won an international Internet - award with a little inspiration from Riverdance.
Jill teck, artist, sculptor, author of the on-line exhibition
JillTeck.com, developed by EireInSite,
has won the International Webmasters, World Web Award of Excellence, only
the second Irish site to do so.
On a personal basis Jill Teck has won the Artspace2000 award
for art site and has received a number of other citations.
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Galway Advertiser
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Search for the Power of Life
(Presentation of paintings to
University College Hospital)
'It was a moving occasion and among the many people who turned up
were nurses who had cared for Jill Teck during her treatment. Matron of
UCHG, Brigid Howley, welcomed Jill's very generous gesture and spoke of
the need in general to improve the hospital environment for patients.
"These paintings will go a long way towards achieving that
goal", she said. "In the past, hospitals have been seen as very
bland, dull places, but people are now recognising it doesn't have to
be like that. We are keen to develop art in the hospital. We do have a
lot of walls," she added with a laugh.
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Magpie
November
2000
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PAINTING THE RIVER
Jill Teck is an artist living and working in Galway city for the last
2 years. Before that she lived in Roundstone where her husband had a shellfish
export business. The house they lived in there was the one previously
owned by Sting. Locally it was known as 'Kate O'Brien's house' and Jill Teck
painted several portraits of her one of which hangs in the library in
Roundstone. When they moved on they sold the house to Bill Whelan who
now lives there and has a recording studio.
Painting and art are talents Jill Teck inherited from her mother and her
mother's father before that, it was only in 1984 that Jill Teck herself started
to paint in earnest. Her work is predominantly in watercolours and while
some paintings are strong and striking there is a pastel lightness to
their colouring in general. The shapes and images are recognisable too
from painting to painting, globes and curves in patterns. 2 years ago
Jill cast her first bronze sculpture, an expensive undertaking with a
lot of investment both of time and money to arrive at the final piece
of work.
Jill Teck uses subjects that appeal to her and recently decided she would
like to do some work involving dance. "I love music, dancing and
colour," she says. She was going to see Riverdance the Show in Dublin
during the summer and mentioned to Bill Whelan that she would like to
sketch there. He suggested that she make a project of it and organised
an access pass for her for the show. Jill Teck spent 2 evenings sketching behind
the scenes and in the auditorium. It was fascinating. In all she saw the
show three times and was surprised by the content. "I didn't know
there was a story there, the emergence of the Irish race, the history
portrayed through ephemeral effects, there were such contrasts and the
stage set was at times other worldly and spiritual, it was beautiful."
Behind the scenes was another world entirely and the blackness of it all
struck Jill Teck. "I was sketching in the dark whether back stage or in
the auditorium." She sketched anything that caught her attention
from a technician shinnying up a rope to the musicians tuning up.
One of the most fascinating subjects for her was a dancer who didn't
want to warm up and just lay on the floor. The sketches are vignettes
or little glimpses of the goings on and while they will not be a literal
portrayal of Riverdance they are likenesses and overall impressions of
the activity around the show. Some are abstract and some are fantasies
based on what she saw. Jill Teck uses her memory and imagination to convert
her sketches into pictures. They are in her own words "light-hearted
and decorative". Jill Teck has also cast two sculptures and produced some
thirty paintings for the project that will go on show on November 24th
at 6pm in the library in Roundstone. Bill Whelan is opening the exhibition
and it coincides with his own performance later that evening with the
Irish Chamber orchestra of his new work 'Inislacken' in the church.
This is by no means Jill Teck's first exhibition or showing, her work is known
widely at this stage and the more she does the stronger her own characteristic
style becomes. She doesn't belong to any particular school of art; she
is not mainstream but specialises in her own style of watercolours. She
seldom uses oils even though she does feel that watercolour has limitations.
"Every picture is an experiment" she says, " and is individualistic
rather than belonging to any particular movement."
Jill Teck's most widely known work to date is probably her series of five self
portraits painted following her hospitalisation with leukemia in 1995.
She also wrote a commentary which together with the paintings was published
as a book called 'Becoming the Tree'. It is a story of sickness and healing.
Jill Teck used mental energy to effect much of the healing herself and explains
that process together with the medical treatment in this inspirational
read.
She has studied psychotherapy, identifies with the work of the Indian
Deepak Chopra and teaches or facilitates groups in his Seven Spiritual
Laws of Success. This year she completed the Irish Institute of Training
and Development's diploma course and has worked with both the Wheelchair
Association and Macnas, combining both activities by bringing the wheelchair
group into the Macnas parade this year in Galway.
Ever active, Jill Teck's next ambition is to study Art therapy, she would love
to write another book and then of course there's travel. But for now she
is hard at work putting the finishing touches to her dancers and singers
with the full weight of those seven spiritual laws guiding her all the
way.
'Dancing the River' opens on November 24th in the Library, Roundstone.
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