Born and based in Melbourne, Cameron Gill (born 1987) is fast emerging as an artist to collect/of significance for his intricately composed, tonally astute paintings and monotypes.

Gill’s work reveals a painter with a deep understanding of modern and contemporary landscape traditions and an uncommon gift for exploring the idiosyncrasies of mark-making in fresh, compelling ways.

Painting with oil on board and canvas – and, more recently, using oil on board and an etching press to make monotypes – Gill creates all-enveloping landscapes of visual entanglement, loosely based on sketches drawn and photographs taken while traversing pockets of bushland throughout his hometown.

Less interested in evoking a sense of place or exploring the historical resonances of a particular site, Gill employs landscape as a formal framework in which to build his lyrical, partially abstracted pictures that are notable for their dense, rhythmic compositions and dark colour harmonies.

Occasionally eerie, always seductive, his paintings draw the eye, commanding the viewer’s attention with their quiet pictorial alchemy.

Gill’s work demonstrates an affinity with artists as diverse as Cezánne, Gauguin, Munch, Luc Tuymans and Peter Doig.

Other touchstones include Gillian Ayres (“for all-encompassing colour and chaos”), Mamma Andersson (“for the space and abstraction of her landscapes”), Vivian Suter (“to help me loosen up and play with paint”) and John Nixon (“for the simplicity and playfulness, and the life he gives to objects and colour in their simplest form”).

Gill graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in 2010, where he was awarded the Roger Kemp Memorial Prize.

Since then, he has held five solo exhibitions, including Pigeon, his debut show with Sophie Gannon Gallery in 2021, which sold out. A key work from that show, Looking back (2021), has been acquired by Artbank.

Additionally, Gill has participated in more than 10 group exhibitions in and around Melbourne and was awarded Most Innovative Work in the 2013 King Valley Art Show.

“In my latest body of work, Arthur and Martha, which focuses on trees, I’ve been trying to capture the weight of trees – their essence – by figuring out their shapes in my own way,” says Gill.

“What makes a tree look like a tree in a picture? How can I suggest a tree without resorting to the obvious? These are the sorts of questions I’ve been asking myself.”