Gavin Chilcott

Gavin Chilcott believes painting should come directly from life?s experiences and one's personal responses, the mainstream and latest trends be damned. Chilcott's style has changed many times during his career due to his reluctance to be dictated to by others? expectations. In the late 70?s he was producing colourful, abstract paintings. Later, he began to explore different media, using his artistic skills to design furniture, pots and rugs. He enjoyed working in collaboration with other artists and gained satisfaction from seeing his ideas drawn on paper and board transformed into three dimensional objets d'art. In 1984, Chilcott visited Carnac in Brittany to see the monolithic stones that stand there. These stones inspired the figures in his autobiographical paintings produced later in the decade. Initially, his figures appeared to be just torsos, but Chilcott gave them arms and legs as he required them to become more active. He became well known for these distinctive figures which, to his surprise, drew descriptions such as 'wood blocks' and faceless stumps. Although Chilcott never enjoyed the technical side of design when he studied at Elam, his work has displayed his interest in graphics and calligraphy.