Kathleen Gilje

"Kathleen Gilje reveals the work to be an art of ideas at the same time that is a tour de force of technical bravura; or rather, idea and materiality coincide so neatly in Gilje's work that at times we do not know we are being fooled, both visually and conceptually, until the spell wears off. But we are being deceived to some end: the subtle and not-so-subtle alterations Gilje wreaks on the time-honored icons of Western painting make us think and see differently. These new incarnations of Old Masterpieces, “contemporary restorations”, as Gilje calls them, seem to reveal the hidden implications of the works themselves, implications that, for the most part, only a present-day feminist would be privy to.”

Linda Nochlin, art historian
(Seeing Beneath the Surface, Art in America, March 2002, Issue no. 3)