Gabriella Gabriel Dillmann

Artist Statement

My name is Gabriella Gabriel Dillmann, but most of my friends call me Gigi. I made my career as a Graphic Artist and Web Designer for the Capital Region BOCES Communications Service in upstate New York. Something that one of my art instructors said coupled with the fact that I created all of my art on the computer and not by hand, for commercial clients, resulted in me struggling to see myself as a true artist for a majority of my 33 year design career.

However, with age came wisdom and a courage to step out of my comfort zone and let go of “perfection”. Since retiring in 2023, I have begun my next chapter as a mixed media artist, exploring many different mediums including clay, fiber arts, acrylics, watercolor, and mixed media collage. I started creating as “play”. Experimenting with different mediums just to see what would happen and most importantly, I began to embrace the imperfections that go along with creating art by hand and the unexpected results that come from joyful experimentation.

I am completely self taught so my work has a whimsical abstract theme centered around the unexpected results of my exploration of mediums.