COLIN CHILLAG - ARTIST RESEARCH

In my tutorial with Tina Jenkins we considered that, even though I had originally intended to paint all of my sketches, some of them have a certain quality which might make it worthwhile to leave them in drawing-form. We also considered the possibility of partially painting some of them and leaving some of the sketch visible. This made me think of what Colin Chillag does.

"New Works". Portraits inspired by Troy Aossey's photographs of residents at Westward Ho Senior Housing. Colin Chillag, 2010. Oil on canvas.

Colin Chillag is an artist who I have researched before. His artwork is still very much relevant to my pratice today. As I wrote a blogpost about his work last year, I will insert some exerpts from that post here, rather than repeating it:

"I am drawn to his work because he makes something really special of the unfinished."

"His creations are often characterized by a sense of incompleteness."

"A lot of Chillag’s paintings are based on found photographs, mostly from the 1970s and are reminiscent of his own childhood. The incompleteness of his paintings could be said to serve as a comment on the fragility of memory – sometimes fading, sometimes a little sketchy and rough around the edges."

"His work highlights the pointlessness of fully finishing something already photographed – and therefore already represented with more detail than possible by the human hand."

Self portrait. Colin Chillag, 2012. Oil in panel, 11 x 14 inches | Tourist at the Grand Canyon. Colin Chillag, 2014. Oil on panel, 18 x 22 inches.

In terms of my current project, I view the idea of incompletenes and unfunished works ties in with my idea of amending the memory of the moment, rather than simply documenting it exactly as it is. Although I very much prefer the painting above on the left, I think it is very impressive and it has a beauty to it, the painting above on the right is intriguing to me because of the darker lines used to outline the preliminary sketch. It is no longer a sketch that just hasn't been painted, it is now soemthing lese - it looks like there has been more of an intention to leave it as a drawing and not paint it. I think if I am to leave some of my pieces as drawings, there needs to be more of an intention behind them, rather than them looking like sketches I haven't gotten around to drawing yet.

Click here for the full blogpost I wrote on his work last year.