'Painting Perception' Emily Gillbanks’ Residency

Her goal was ambitious: to stage what she described as “a meeting between the history of pigment and the edge of perception.” Working exclusively with Daler-Rowney Georgian oils, a range she has used since painting at her grandparents’ kitchen table, Emily sought to capture not only the physical processes behind the materials but also the human rhythm and labour embedded within them.

Armed with an Apple Vision Pro headset, Emily began the residency by recording spatial videos throughout the factory. These immersive recordings became source material for a panoramic painted scene, allowing her to dissect moments in three-dimensional light and reassemble them through paint. “From mixing to tube filling, from labelling to boxing, I traced the rhythm of the process in a single continuous scene.”

Back in the studio, Emily translated this footage onto canvas. “Every detail was intentional,” she noted. “I wanted it to be alive with the magic of labour – machines glinting, figures in motion, pigments becoming substance.” The composition, built up through layered tints and shades, incorporated reflective materials like metal, frosted glass, and skin. Throughout, Emily relied on her signature method of adding raw umber into every hue to maintain tonal coherence and a distinct coolness, something she considers foundational to her palette.

The resulting painting was unlike anything she had attempted before. Vast, detailed, and alive with quiet energy, it merged Emily’s painterly language with a spatial, almost cinematic narrative. “If time had allowed,” she reflected, “I would have extended the painting across two more canvases, stretching the panorama further, allowing the scene to unfurl.”

Emily Gillbanks’ residency not only offered a new way to visually document Daler-Rowney’s legacy of colour-making but also revealed how traditional techniques can remain vital in a world increasingly shaped by screens and immersive technology. By anchoring her vision in oil paint, while simultaneously embracing the digital, Emily created something that resists categorisation: part portrait, part landscape, part data, and wholly human.