Emily Wilson Gillespie
Bloomington, IN
“Art is a space with no rules, no structure, and endless possibilities.”
Raised in Greencastle, Indiana, and based in Bloomington since 2014, Emily Wilson Gillespie has always carried a keen eye for detail. Her earliest artistic instincts were shaped not in a studio but in the backseat of a car, traveling countless miles to and from dance classes and competitions. Those journeys became lessons in quiet observation. “All that time in the passenger’s seat created a habit of observing my surroundings. I started to notice contrasting colors in a fencerow or how a tree’s branches bent over a road,” she recalls.
This habit of looking closely continues to shape her practice today. She takes weekly hikes, intentionally returning to familiar trails to watch how they change across the seasons. A bend in the path, a sudden view from a ridge, or the quality of light filtering through trees, each small shift becomes a source of inspiration. “I enjoy noticing how a trail or viewpoint can change drastically depending on the season,” she explains. These observations, subtle yet transformative, find their way into her canvases.
For her, painting is both refuge and ritual. During the most difficult periods of her life, including her diagnoses with celiac’s disease and ADHD, the act of creating has been a steadfast companion. “When I have felt at my lowest, creating has always been a place where I can escape from life’s challenges. Painting is soothing and reliable. I know that if I follow the same formula, I can mix the same color.” In that steadiness lies freedom: within repetition and reliability, she finds new possibilities of expression.
Her first memory of making art is one of pure wonder. In preschool, a teacher placed paper in a shallow plastic tub, added splashes of paint, and dropped in marbles. “I remember tipping and moving the tub in my hands and watching the marbles create new lines and mix colors. It felt like magic and I was immediately hooked.” That sense of magic, of watching shapes emerge, collide, and transform remains at the core of her artistic process.
Over time, her paintings have undergone a quiet evolution. “My paintings have grown from quiet and loose to bright and structured,” she reflects. Her practice now centers on abstract landscapes that blend playful shapes, vivid watercolors, and native plant dyes. Each material carries its own resonance: watercolor for its luminosity and spontaneity, plant dyes for their connection to the natural world, and defined shapes for their sense of order and balance.
The resulting works inhabit an intriguing tension. On the one hand, her shapes are clear and deliberate; on the other, the finished image often slips into dreamlike terrain. The landscapes she creates may feel both familiar and strange, proportioned yet surreal. This duality reflects her fascination with perception itself- how what we see is never static but always shifting depending on light, memory, and perspective.
Her art is rooted in the practice of seeing. It is about pausing long enough to notice the way a roadside tree leans into the sky, or the fleeting contrast between wildflowers in a fencerow. It is about honoring the changes in a trail she has walked dozens of times, and translating those discoveries into shapes and colors that hold both clarity and mystery.
Through her paintings, she invites viewers to share in this act of noticing. Just as a familiar path transforms from season to season, her work shifts meaning depending on the gaze of the viewer and the moment in which it is encountered. She hopes the paintings serve as both mirror and window: a mirror that reflects the viewer’s own imagination and emotions, and a window that opens onto landscapes that are both grounded in the real and elevated into the surreal.
Ultimately, her practice connects childhood wonder with adult resilience. She is still the child marveling at paint-streaked marbles, the teenager gazing out the passenger window, and the adult finding steadiness in repetition. All of these selves converge in her work, giving each piece a sense of both continuity and discovery.
In every brushstroke, there is an invitation: to look more closely, to find magic in a line, to uncover possibility in color. Her paintings are not merely landscapes of place, but landscapes of perception: alive, shifting, and full of wonder.
