Chrilz Explores Concepts of Human Nature

Artwork by Chrilz

Chrilz's art practice focuses on human nature, our experiences, our emotions and our relationships. His approach follows two distinct phases: development and execution. Usually he writes down his idea in a few words to avoid losing connection with it.

"My work is conceptually-driven, so there is often a lot of writing that goes into the early phases"

He refers to his writings as conceptual statements: sometimes it is spoken from his vantage point, other times from a more omniscient perspective, but more often it is some sort of voice from within a piece itself that materializes the compositional elements. Using photography to capture the right reference leads him to begin sketching. "When I have the right image, the execution period begins, which is the way I describe the point of breaking ground on the finished piece."

Chrilz finds inspiration through countless forms. Sometimes just a few words, a sound, a color, a shape, a small idea, and occasionally the composition becomes clear before the concepts are fully fleshed out. "I am always growing in regards to process and that evolution always invigorates me."

Artworks by Chrilz

Chrilz is constantly keeping a balance between the conceptual and the expressive in his art. "I don’t think I could have one without the other in my work, and I think that speaks to who I am as an individual. Internally I am both a very rational thinker and highly emotional, so I regularly moderate between the two."

Since his earliest days of drawing, Chrilz was always pulled towards the human form. He finds it to be one of the most powerful and inherently expressive elements in artwork. His use of the human form is as a vehicle for expression rather than a study of the figure itself, "I prefer describing it as Neo-figurative. I do believe the figure is more than a mere element of my composition, but I also acknowledge that its place in my process is subordinate to the ideas." Studying the work of artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francis Bacon validated these initial feelings of identifying with that style. Like them, Chrilz uses the figure in his work to serve a new, more divergent end than what might be considered traditional.

Chrilz's use of expressionism is primarily to describe artwork that seeks to express something greater. The compositional elements within his work are tools to further the ultimate end of the ideas, the concepts, the emotional connection. No piece is ever meant to be soaked in at face value or at a purely aesthetic level—a quality he shares with the expressionists—in spite of his frequent use of realism and very representational elements, unlike traditional expressionism. "This is why I prefer to use Neo-expressionism, although this could be interchangeable with the idea of intentionalism."