ABOUT JILL

Jill Hockett was born Jill Unwin in Southwick, Sussex on a chilly November morning in 1950. With her parents and sister she moved to Sompting at the age of nine. Having married at eighteen and her two children arriving within a few years of that, Jill was relatively free to pursue her love of art, and childhood dream of becoming a painter.

In 1975 Jill was accepted as a student at the Atelier of Dr Gyula Sajo in Chesswood Road, Worthing. Dr Sajo, a former University Professor who had left Hungary for England in 1956, helped her to develop her creative ability to work from life. This culminated, in his words, "A level of attainment in Life drawing, painting and understanding of colour equivalent to that of a graduate in Art Studies". Printmaking was also explored diligently.

Her first one-man show was at the Terrace gallery in Worthing in 1986. Jill has exhibited regularly in various London exhibitions.

Major influences on her work have been the Post Impressionists, in particular Sickert and other early 20th century masters.

Though ideas for her paintings have been diverse, covering a range of traditional and more unusual subjects, from a simple toothbrush to a complex crowd scene or ornate architecture, her strongest and most abiding inspiration comes from working directly with the chosen subject. She states: "The act of observing the subject, reacting to it and the sheer involvement with it is, I find, the most exhilarating part. The subject matter itself becomes irrelevant!"

Her sister says "I have seen her work grow and alter over the years, absorbing new influences, evolving in style and content, emerging confident and exuberant with a tremendous presence."

Having arrived at this point with a powerful personal style, and in the current climate which encourages more conceptual art, Jill prefers to utilise art's time-honoured disciplines as a means of expressing her love of design, tone, texture and colour harmonies.

Prominent potter Bernard Leach also felt that too much emphasis is put on intellect and individualism in Western Art. In a television documentary broadcast in 1960 he stated: "The craftsman is the only one left who uses heart, hand and head in balance." Jill Hockett agrees. Her fervent hope is that the passion, skill and knowledge, in balance, which she aspires to in each of her paintings, are apparent, also, to the observer.