Jill Bates

Jill was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan where she lived on Crooked Lake until her senior year of high school when her family moved to Wilmington Delaware.  She did undergraduate work at High Point College in North Carolina and also attended Georgia Southwestern College in Americus, Georgia.  She studied various visual media, but her major course of study was English Literature and Biology.

Jill has participated in various solo and juried exhibitions around the state of Georgia and, more recently, with the Cape Cod Art Association in Massachusetts.  She is also a member of the Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod.  Her work has received recognition at several venues, including several exhibitions with the Cape Cod Art Association, Beaux Arts, Atlanta Beach, Jonesboro, Best of Show; Artists of the Southern Crescent Juried Exhibition; Fayette County Courthouse Art Show in the Square, Honorable Mention; One Man Show, Performing Arts Center, Jonesboro, GA; Clayton County Festival of Art, 3 purchase awards.  Jill was represented by the Decatur Market & Gallery in Atlanta.  Her work is included in several corporate and private collections.

Recently relocated to New England, Jill lives with her husband as a year-round resident of Cotuit, MA.

Artist’s Statement

“My style of working has been greatly influenced by a Childhood spent almost entirely either swimming in or playing on the banks of Crooked Lake.  All our entertainment and exploration centered around the water.  We were constantly catching crayfish, turtles, and weird water bugs.  I have carried those idyllic and happy days in my heart down through the years and now my paintings are full of those images.  My personal goal is to continue finding ways to catch the constantly changing properties of light as it is both reflected and absorbed in nature.”