Gill Bustamante
Gill Bustamante B.A. – Artist and Art Tutor, Sussex.
I paint large contemporary oil paintings of woodland scenes, trees, landscapes, animals, seascapes, underwater paintings, tropical fish and koi fish. My oil canvases are affordable and impressionist/expressionist and slightly art-nouveau in style. My favourite artist apart from myself is Gustav Klimt. I use thick (impasto) paint on 3D – deep edge canvas. I did my art foundation course at Chelsea and my fine art degree course at Brighton completing in 1982.
I am not arty, deep, mysterious, messed up, young, ‘emerging’ or remotely likely to get famous – I just like painting. I am inspired by music, cake and practically anything I look at. I plan to pretend I am dead at some point in order to sell more paintings.
Although I mostly sell the art listed in my portfolio, I also accept commissions to paint animal portraits, landscapes etc. See my ‘COMMISSIONS’ gallery for details On my Website – www.gillbustamante.com
Like many artists I sometimes describe myself as an ‘award winning artist’ for PR reasons. It is true but I rarely mention what the awards were so in the interest of integrity, here are my awards:
a) When I was 4 and in a convent school I won the ‘best painting of an angel’ competition. I won a handkerchief and a plastic flower.
b) When I was 9 I came first in a local painting competition for painting a picture of my house. It was a surprise as I had chucked it away a few weeks earlier when I got cross with it – not knowing my Dad had found it in the bin and entered into the competition. I still have the photo that was in the local paper of me looking simultaneously stupid, pleased and disgusted as the Mayor gave me my prize. I won a £5 book token.
c) When I was 11. I became the proud owner of a Blue Peter badge which I won for painting an underwater scene in a competition in 1979. I won a plastic badge with a boat on it.
d) When I was 37. I won an award for best wildlife painting in an on-line competition where people voted for best painting. I never got my prize as the website went down a week later.
e) When I was 48. I won first prize in the Danehill Art Fair. I won £250 (yay – an actual prize!)
That was possibly the best my illustrious competition winning career is going to get but at least I can genuinely call myself ’award winning’ – impressive eh?
