June 2023. Site specific research and development of the new virtual sculpture In Absentia will start in UNESCO Geopark sites of the Ionion island of Kefalonia supported by a one month residency and exhibition grant awarded by the Ionion Center for the Arts & Culture Greece. Gatfield's residency project includes experimentation and activations of the digital presence in sites of antiquity and special significance in geology, ecology and culture in the Geopark, a gem in the Ionion sea imbued with ancient history and philosophy. The Ionion Center's programmes are designed and led by international artists and academics, including curatorial lead Dr Haytham Nawar, aiming to advance and promote creative collaborations across the fields of research, arts, technology, science and the environment.

2023 Artist in Residence is awarded to NZ based international artist Gill Gatfield by Poison Creek Sculpture Project. High on the foothills of Mount Pisa in Te Waipounamu / South Island NZ. Poison Creek hosts a dynamic contemporary sculpture collection that celebrates and supports Aotearoa's finest sculptors and rising stars. Gill Gatfield's residency project will evolve across two seasons in this wilderness landscape, experimenting with new materials and ideas and exploring the healing and spiritual powers of this magical place as she creates an enchanting site-specific work that connects with Poison Creek's unique ecology and cultural landscape.

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Jan. 2023. A new video reveals the magic of Native Tongue XR, an ephemeral presence experienced at over 3 metres / 10ft high in real time and place during Venice Art Biennale 2022. Showcased by the European Cultural Centre for 7 months in the exhibition 'Personal Structures', the digital monument was created by over 3,000 art enthusiasts inside the Giardini della Marinessa and on the monumental Venetian waterfront.

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Oct.-Dec. 2022. "Launching at Paris Photo 2022, XIBT Magazine includes a critique of captivating conceptual artist and thinker, Gill Gatfield's UNITY by writer and curator Roxane Latrèche:

At once totem and monument, personal spiritual token and collective unyielding pillar, Gill Gatfield’s UNITY probes the symbols for which it stands. Among the sinuous waters and alleys of Venice, its two specifically-sited I-forms materialise. One nestled on a wall; a jewel among the many pendants that adorn the halls of the 15th-century Palazzo Bembo, built on the Canal Grande to house the treasures of a noble merchant family – Harmony, a miniature sculpture, a crest to its surroundings. The other erected on the ground; a virtual stela among the perennial pines of the Giardini della Marinaressa, confronting the storied lagoon as have for centuries warring and parading ships – Native Tongue XR, a monumental digital structure, a vestige of its histories. ..."

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Oct 2022. In the frame of the exhibition UNITY in Venice, curator Bohdan Stupak interviewed Gill Gatfield for contemporary art magazine ARTScore, canvassing the artist's relationship to the city of water, her sources of inspiration, dedication to natural materials, conceptual approach to minimalism, and the embodied critique of democratic ideals in her three Venetian sculptures: Native Tongue XR 2018-2022, Harmony 2022, and Zealandia 2018.

"Venice mirrors the mind. Full of mystery and intrigue, the city physically plunges the body into its hidden streets and canals: narrow and winding, enveloped by the darkness and the elements of the centuries. Secret passages force people to come closer: anonymous whispering bodies passing by. ... Being inside Venice is like being inside a sensory cave. Creativity runs through the veins of the city."

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English Translation of ARTScore Interview

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Sept 2022. A new article expands on the digital artworks in Personal Structures 2022 by ([{ collective, Superchief Gallery, Carrie Able, Gill Gatfield, Sasha Sparks, Corine van Voorbergen, Mark Dotzler, and Marianna Williams:

Contemporary art continues to incorporate new technologies and new paradigms, encouraging spectators to explore different ways of thinking and seeing the world. Being an open and progressive platform at the forefront of current developments in art and society, the European Cultural Centre selected for its biennial art exhibition 'Personal Structures' a group of artists and galleries that contribute to the realm of digital art. ...

At Giardini della Marinaressa, New Zealand sculptor Gill Gatfield presents Native Tongue XR, a three metre virtual sculpture existing in the Metaverse. ... Merging creative technology within the framework of conceptual art, the artwork presents as an immersive sensory experience while also using the method of its making as critical content to build further ideas. In Gatfield’s practice, extended reality is a means and not an end. ...

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Sept. 2022. Gill Gatfield's UNITY features in Venezia News round-up of digital artworks in Venice as they relate to the city and the future. In her review 'Personal Structures - The Dawn of New Art', Elena Migotto identifies the two sculptures in UNITY - Harmony and Native Tongue XR as 'artworks in search of new expressive scenarios':

.. More disorienting still are the ways in which New Zealand sculptor Gill Gatfield ... reclaims space in the Palazzo Bembo and the Giardini della Marinaressa. In the first case, two sculptures, independent, connect as much in the form that characterises them as in their proportional scales: Harmony is a miniature I, while Native Tongue XR is a monumental I. Once again here, the use of the Metaverse appears crucial to eliciting the sense of intangible attraction with which the concreteness of the totemic Native Tongue is deconstructed, transcending the bounds of immediate materiality. … 

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In Venice, European Cultural Centre launches a new publication on the artist's work in the biennial exhibition Personal Structures 2022. The micro-catalogue designed by the artist reflects the UNITY methodologies: miniature and metaverse, physical and digital, and includes excerpts from an upcoming review by Berlin based curator Roxane Latrèche, accessed via QR code.

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