JEFF IORILLO
I started painting over 20 years ago, led by my hands.
I felt an itch to pour bright colors onto heavy paper on the floor of my garage, then push and drag them into streaks and blobs holding a strip of masonite. I called my technique and my simple, bold compositions "Velocity Paintings" exploring mass, momentum, gesture and color. I didn't know about Abstract Expressionism, Action Painting, Pollock or Richter at the time (they've all become good friends).
Since then I've smeared, pushed, dragged and scraped my way through many bodies of work, all sorts of art materials, and explored abstract and figurative painting and drawing in oil and acrylic, sculpture, drypoint, woodcut, video and performance art. I've sought out mentors and taken classes and workshops at the San Francisco Art Institute, Otis College, ArtCenter, and Idyllwild Arts, and I've led and moderated artists' critique groups through the Los Angeles Art Association.
I've shown extensively in LA's energetic and wonderfully friendly independent-artist scene for over a decade. Recent shows include a solo at OFFUS Gallery in the Bendix Building, a solo in the Mondrian Hotel lobby on Sunset Strip, group shows at SADE Gallery, Art Division, Gallery 825, TAG, LA Artcore, ArtShareLA, and Art Lounge; I've been juried into shows at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, Glendale's Brand Library Gallery and Torrance Art Museum’s NOMAD and TRYST art fairs; I've traveled with my work and other LA artists to show in a museum of art in Japan and a villa in Italy.
Today my abstract canvases are represented in galleries in Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis and Florida; my large-scale work is commissioned for large spaces like luxury hotel lobbies from Las Vegas to Mexico City; I have an 8 by 10-foot piece in the Wilshire-LaCienega Tower lobby and a piece in the LA Live complex. My work is regularly selected by Hollywood set designers to appear in popular TV shows, major motion pictures and Super Bowl spots (ask me about the NCIS-LA studio visit).
My current work is still rooted in my original "Velocity" concept. I'm still pushing paint, now with plexiglas blades, and the artist statement is simple: it's another expression of my never-ending love affair with the pure materiality and process of painting.
CV and complete list of installations, commissions, and film & television by request.