Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Gill.
Christopher, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
For 35 years, I have made my living as a psychotherapist, primarily with children and adolescents. I have always been a very creatively driven person, however, and have made art in one form or another my entire life. My father was a psychiatrist and my mother a painter and printmaker. I grew up in a Boston suburb, surrounded by art, music and psychology.
When I was younger I played drums in rock bands, culminating with my work in the San Francisco based, new wave rock band, Ultrasheen, and the Boston punk band, Vitamin, in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. I also wrote poetry and performed spoken word oriented performance art, in such venues as the Comisery Café in San Francisco. In my 30’s and 40’s, while raising a family with three children in Massachusetts, I taught myself guitar and bass, and wrote a lot of songs. In 2002, I started a small record company called Vague Moon Records, so that I could release my own music.
In 2010, I started drawing and painting abstract images on a daily basis, and soon thereafter, painting became my passion. It still is. I paint as an exploration of the physical and the metaphysical world. I rarely touch my brush to the paper, and instead, I splatter, spill, pour and roll the paint, while constantly manipulating the paper itself. It is a joyful process of constant improvisation, whereby I attempt to channel nature, and to express its manifest and more mysterious aspects, by harnessing both intentional and more random elements.
I would like to think that my painting reflects my personal biography as a life-long creative seeker, interested in psychology, art, music, philosophy and metaphysics, who is constantly exploring and attempting to express the fascinating and complex interconnections between the inner and outer worlds. That is who I am, and that is my mission as an artist.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I worked long hours as a school social worker and psychotherapist for many years, and was also a very involved father to my three children. There wasn’t a lot of time left for me to pursue my music and art in my days of raising a family. Yet, I am inherently very driven, and tended to stay up late, risking sleep deprivation and exhaustion, in order to push forward as an artist. I don’t sit around doing nothing very often. I am always trying to create something. Now that my kids are grown and my work schedule less intense, I have plenty of time to paint.
Chris Gill, Painter – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I am an “action painter.” I paint (mostly) large abstract paintings. I use watercolor and gouache paints on large paper rolls. In general, watercolor paintings are mostly small and figurative. Mine are large and abstract.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
For me success is an internal measure. I judge success by how I feel about my paintings. If I am growing and progressing as an artist, I am succeeding. If I am getting stagnant, I am not. My goal is to grow as an artist until the day I die.
Contact Info:
- Address: Studio Address: Mixit Artist Cooperative, 32 Clifton Street, Somerville, Ma 02144
- Website: chrisgillartist.com
- Phone: 978-877-0332
- Email: christopherbgill@gmail.com
- Instagram: chrisgillart
Image Credit:
Gary Duehr
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