Still Moving: Layers in Motion is Jon Gilchrist’s first survey exhibition, a journey through his most recent series, presented as visual manifesto of personal and artistic origins and expansions. Themes of transformation weave throughout the exhibition, tracing an evolution that is not only formal, but also deeply emotional and personal.
The exhibition opens with works exploring process and mark-making in The Sooner Series (2021), taking inspiration from Jon’s formative high school years, marked by a colorful palette and oversaturated textures. This is followed by paintings from Superconscious (2024), a deeper exploration of chakras through more carefully selected color schemes, and Tides (2024), where constant movement and the introduction of negative space begin to emerge.
This progression finds its most recent iteration in the Illumilocity Series (2025), where the artist sits almost entirely within negative space; color searching for ways to convey itself through restraint and texture rather than bold presence.
At the emotional core of the exhibition is Saturday Morning Biscuits, a work tied directly to the passing of his mother, a loss that marked both a rupture and the driving force behind the birth of Gilchrist’s artistic career. Painted as an homage, the work carries grief, memory, and tenderness, while also functioning as a conceptual anchor that bridges past and present. For this exhibition, the decision to re-edit or recontextualize the piece becomes an act of reconciliation rather than revision. By presenting the original version alongside its current form, the exhibition creates a circular structure: not progression as abandonment, but as return.
Revisiting this work today, the artist recognizes the distance between who he was then and who he is now, a reflection that extends outward to the viewer. The exhibition invites us to consider our own journeys and formative moments, suggesting that at the heart of loss, there is also the possibility of rebirth.