After graduating from the Slade School of Art in London, Jill won a European scholarship to paint in South-West France. She returned to London to establish a studio, continuing to spend half the year in France with frequent trips to work in Italy and Spain. Now entirely based in England she lives and works in rural Lincolnshire, where the rolling countryside and huge skies provide constant stimulation for her work. "For me the excitement of painting is trying to capture the 'likeness' of things without slavish description. Paradoxically, I find the most interesting way to carve out this reality is to use objects of an ephemeral nature: trees, clouds, flowers; their constant movement and the passage of the light during the day forces me to make decisions about their essential character and to attempt to draw that, rather than rely on an impression based on the moment. Similarly my approach to color is to distill the essence and define the point of change rather than model the surface."