Artist Talks with Patricia Bellan-Gillen

Last Thursday, I went to listen to this, without knowing what to expect.  In my head I had formed a half-idea of what I thought she looked like, and that was it.  I was actually pretty close.  I thought she was an older woman, still active, whose hair wasn't dyed to hide the gray in it.  I was right.  I'm not sure why I thought this, or how this image had come into my imagination just from looking at her paintings in the gallery.  Just some strange little thing I felt like sharing.

She started off listing the sources of her inspiration, only a few of which I was able to jot down.  Bellan-Gillen was raised Roman Catholic, and so drew much of her inspiration and ideas from the Biblical stories and myths.  Art and religion, she said, were wrapped up together in her mind.  She also likes to draw from various mythologies, and politics.  There were about a million other things she said, but they haven't stayed in my brain.
Then, she spoke about how she got ideas for various works (that she showed up on a powerpoint), and spoke about some of the symbols that were prominent across her works.
The symbol that interested me the most was Pinnochio.  Originally, the character Pinnochio is from a children's story called The Adventures of Pinnochio, published in 1883, by Carlo Collodi.  I got the feeling that the particular aspect of Pinnochio she likes to use is his iconic long nose, symbolising liars.  The 1883 story of Pinnochio is strange and sometimes gruesome, and could be compared to Alice in Wonderland. 
I noticed, while Bellan-Gillen was speaking, that she liked children's stories, and also mentioned that she liked the "silly" qualities of some of the images that appeared in her paintings.  The little flowers in the piece Bouquet, that made up the figure of the bear, were "silly".  To me, 'silly' is derogatory, so I hadn't thought of them that way.  I think that child-like, would be a better way to say it, but, I'm not going to argue with the artist.
It was very interesting to hear her talk about how she came up with her works, and when she did, it made total sense to me.  It seemed so obvious after she had said it, and once she pointed out the connections between all the images, I saw the message that was there.  I guess I felt a little bit like I had lost something, because the great mystery and confusion of 'what could this possibly mean?' was removed, but I am still free to interpret the paintings with my own imagination - I have that power as a viewer.
I could go on and on, but then that would get boring.  Bellan-Gillen is a wonderful artist with things to say.  All her pieces have an unmistakeable aesthetic, and are definitely worth looking at.