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JEFF IORILLO ARTIST STATEMENT 2015

 

Jeff Iorillo is a Los Angeles-based painter working in acrylic and enamel on canvas, masonite, and metal. Jeff's experimental process exploration leads to distinct bodies of work, whose consistent feature is a bold, vivid abstract style investigating materials, mass and momentum, color and gesture. He is interested in seizing the attention with an immediate impact, then holding it with a dynamic technique and details that invite speculation.

Jeff's work lives at the boundary between control and chaos: pushing a specific technique, usually invented, past its breaking point to achieve a spontaneity and unrestrained quality beyond his original intention. 

The Southern California sun is his collaborator in the "Sun Paintings," whose forceful objecthood comes from the heat that creates them. Working outside in hot weather and controlling color, texture and density, Jeff mixes acrylic paint with water and additions like pulverized marble. Direct sun bakes it dry to reveal colors, textures and cracks that amplify on his original intentions, some compositions intact and others torn and distressed. The Sun Paintings utilize neither canvas nor brush; they are a unique expression of pure paint shaped by heat and time.

Themes that Jeff explores include the role of the artist's intention and the organic evolution of the work itself; challenging the boundary between painting and sculpture; and his ongoing search for authenticity in mark-making and composition.

Jeff has been painting seriously for over fifteen years, with studies at  Otis College and Art Center in Los Angeles, as well as the San Francisco Art Institute. His work is acquired by individuals and corporate collections, and is commissioned for commercial installations from Las Vegas to Hong Kong to Mexico City. He has recently shown in L.A. galleries including Couturier Gallery and Gallery 825, and has been represented by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Art Rental & Sales Gallery. Jeff's work is regularly selected by Hollywood set designers for television and movies.

Jeff is a Member of the Los Angeles Art Association. He lives and works in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake, between Hollywood and downtown.