Jillian FitzMaurice

Jillian FitzMaurice (b. 1988, Chicago, IL) is a Denver-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, drawing, performance, video, and installation. Her works, marked by vibrant color and gestural immediacy, explore themes of escapism and longing for connection, often leaning into nostalgic or mythic tropes as a source of comfort.

Palm trees, horses, rainbows, and wild animals recur throughout her compositions, acting as familiar icons drawn from pop culture, childhood symbolism, and cinematic fantasy. FitzMaurice’s paintings inhabit a liminal space between reality and imagination, evoking both the seduction and melancholy of idealized imagery. Energetic brushwork and bold mark-making combine with softer, atmospheric passages to create layered narratives that feel simultaneously playful and wistful.

Influenced by surrealism and informed by her time spent in the landscapes of Southwest Texas, FitzMaurice’s visual language interrogates how mediated symbols shape our desires and memories. Her work questions the spaces we retreat to in search of connection—dreams, screens, and memories—and how these spaces, while comforting, remain tinged with quiet loneliness.

She earned her BFA in Drawing from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2011 and studied abroad at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland. Her work has been exhibited widely and is held in private collections across the United States, Ireland, and Great Britain.