David Chirko

Photo: Ivan Basar

Chirko, at his Nepean Visual
Arts Centre Gallery exhibit,
Ottawa

Biography

I have been painting since early 1981. My acrylic on canvas works come in straight-edge and free-hand styles. For 3D effects I espouse extensive glazing, achieved by thinning opaque colours with water, which deliver transparent shapes on top of solid colours. Equally effective here is the employment of dense textures, accomplished by toothbrush sprinkling followed by paper towel patting. Some of my works include larger splashes combined with geometric figures. Chromaticism is important, too--I have never shied away from the use of bright, intensive colours. For some of my pieces I go with descending colour values, where ultra thin lines allow for the juxtaposition of shapes and backgrounds of similar colour values. To create rhythm, I strategically place the shapes, of different sizes, various distances from one another.

I am a Laurentian University graduate, with a baccalaureate in philosophy & sociology. My artistic philosophy is to capture what I find meaningful in my everyday consciousness; an encounter I call ''Creative Communication.'' There, psychology--Gestalt meeting the psychoanalytic, wherein symmetrical technique makes meaning of unconscious impulses--fuses with the aesthetic; attracting the viewer with a harmonious use of colour, texture, shape and movement. In my spare time I compose psychology articles and belong to the American Psychological Association.