G. J. Gillespie | Summer 2026
Set Course for the
Horizon of the Sun
G. J. Gillespie | Summer 2026
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“This piece leaves an imprint of how I think about time and place. I work on Whidbey Island in a 1928 house, but my materials come from supermarkets and my titles come from rock songs and ancient poetry simultaneously. "Set the Controls" operates the same way — Aboriginal Dreamtime mapping and medieval stained glass and Pink Floyd all converging in a single surface. The piece is ritualistic and repetitive, like something built over centuries rather than weeks. That is how I understand my own practice: layering until the surface holds the weight of multiple histories at once.”
GJ Gillespie is a mixed-media collage artist living in a 1928 Tudor Revival farmhouse overlooking Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle. Inspired by mid-century abstract expressionism and the Northwest Mystics, he layers found papers, tissue, acrylic, and graphite into compositions drawn from mythology, music, and shared cultural memory, titling each work after a rock, pop, or folk song. Winner of 19 awards, his art has appeared in 74 exhibitions and 217 publications. He has completed six residencies at the University of Washington Whiteley Center, Friday Harbor Labs. When he is not making art, he runs Leda Art Supply, his international premium sketchbook brand.