Elixir Magazine India Edition Expressionism (Joel Gill)

At the young age of 19, Artist Joel Gill started his journey as an art instructor (part-time) in National Bal Bhavan (NBB), a government institute providing informal education to the children in the field of various recreational activities including creative art. Artist Joel Gill pursued his professional courses in the field of art along with his regular job in NBB. Artist Joel Gill has devoted a major part of his life to this organization in various capacities till he opted for voluntary retirement at the age of 43, in 2003. During his tenure in NBB, he was engaged with lots of art activities like painting, craft, clay modeling, illustrations, cartoon making, and tableau fabrication, among others. 

After his retirement, Artist Joel Gill authored many textbook series on art for different classes besides being an art consultant for private publications and doing freelance illustration work. Painting was always Artist Joel Gill’s primary field of work, which he never stopped. He still paints and participates in art exhibitions around the country.

Generally, Artist Joel Gill’s work speaks about his personal encounters with human relationships, the human struggle to survive, and his very social surroundings. His basic thrust has been to create ripples in the minds of his viewers using thought-provoking imagery. Artist Joel Gill loves to play with forms to vent out his thoughts, using his color palette.

Many of Artist Joel Gill’s lovers keep his work under the expressionism category, but Artist Joel Gill’s sole aim remains to paint and enjoy art that has a designated role to play. His work mostly depicts a sort of subjective and meaningful story containing lots of thought-provoking emotions, which sometimes incites pain. His canvases generally carry stylized human forms treated with visible painterly strokes containing lots of genuine texture. 

An ardent admirer of many contemporary painters around the world Artist Joel Gill considers Indian painters F. N. Souza and M. F. Husain to be his favorites. He is also a big fan of Russian-French artist Marc Chagall whose work has been the biggest influence for him.