Gillian McIver is a UK based Canadian artist. She studied history and philosophy before moving to Europe.

Starting out as a documentary film maker, she began to work with experimental film making and video and installation art. She has worked with the Luna Nera group as artist and curator since 1997, as well as exhibiting her work in the UK and internationally. She has won awards from the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the British Council, the Canada Council, and the Arts Council of England, as well as private foundations.

Artist statement:

The deep role of time and change as the basic subject matter for all of my work is part of what I call the condition “post-industrial art” emerging on the cusp of the Millennium, Art made in the wastelands of urban dereliction, in the consciousness of the postindustrial
state we live in, where old structures that bound social existence, such as factories, hospitals, lidos and schools have been abandoned to new ideologies.

As an artist I am compelled by the notion of the “reintegration of fragments” or what Anselm Kiefer has described as “bringing together what has come apart.” I see my interest in site-response as part of a larger picture, in which art grapples with notions of fragmentation and time.

I am interested in revealing images which are very strong; that offer a glimpse of past worlds and indistinct realities; where the boundaries between fiction and documentary blur, and memories take on a life of their own.