Daric Gill - Interdisciplinary Artist
Interdisciplinary artist Daric Gill specializes in robotic sculptures & oil painting. He holds an MFA from the University of Cincinnati & a BFA from Columbus College of Art & Design. Gill has received multiple awards, including the 2019 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award & fellowships in Dresden, Germany, Cuba, & Columbus. He is an ICOM & IAA member. His work has been exhibited internationally, including in South Korea, Germany, Cuba, NYC, & LA. Gill is a full-time studio artist, former adjunct instructor, & runs a free online professional development resource.
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Today will be a short but exciting entry! I’m ecstatic to announce that MAKE: magazine has written an online article covering my latest kinetic light sculpture, “The Living Orb”. If you’re not familiar with the magazine, it’s a quarterly periodical and online leader of the maker movement. They are an amazing source for project tutorials, art & design blogs, electronics reviews, skill-building, and the fantastic projects & imaginations of interesting people across the globe.
It’s a true honor to be acknowledged by MAKE:. A special thanks goes to contributing writer, Jeremy Cook who also happens to be a skilled engineer/maker. You can give him some online love at his website, DIYTripods.com or follow him on Twitter.
Want to see how “The Living Orb” was made? Follow the build process from start to finish here.
“Who’s your inspiration?”: My Ballet Of Unlikely Answers
by Daric Gill
The first question an artist is asked upon introduction is, “What type of art do you make?”. This is quickly followed up by, “Who (or what) is your inspiration?”. These are reasonable questions. After all, almost everyone knows what an artist is, but aren’t really sure what an artist does. And certainly, they don’t know where we get our ideas. Shoot… sometimes we don’t even know where they come from ourselves.
From experience I know that what I’m about to say is not the answer they are expecting:
My art and inspirations areinterdisciplinary. So, by definition it’s not as easy to define. What then?
There’s always a ballet of rhetoric that I have to employ to maintain brevity but still answer with clarity. The following article offers both a brief explanation of my inspirations as well as a more in-depth description of how I get inspired. And if you’re one of those people who want to know more about your fellow artists, but aren’t sure how to start-up the conversation, hopefully, this can help.
After a gallery visit and meeting the director, I’m extremely pleased to announce that I’ve recently started a new relationship with the George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles. An Absolute painting has made its way to the gallery and will hopefully pioneer the journey for many more pieces in this location. A ‘test drive’ is usually in order for exhibiting with new galleries and I’m quite optimistic that our friendship has plenty to build on. If you’re in the area, please stop in and check out the space.
More About the Gallery
The George Billis Gallery is an exhibition space with locations in New York City and Los Angeles. After maintaining a successful contemporary art space in New York, the George Billis Gallery opened a second location in the Culver City Art District in LA. Their locations in the heart of Chelsea Art District and Culver City Art District provide a great platform to showcase national and international artists.
Locations:
LOS ANGELES HOURS
Summer Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 AM – 5 PM ADDRESS
2716 S. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90034
Map it here
NEW YORK CITY HOURS
Tuesday – Saturday, 10 AM – 6 PM
ADDRESS
525 West 26th Street, Ground Floor
Between 10th and 11th Avenues
New York, NY 10001
Map it here
The Story Behind The Original “Absolute” Painting & Updated Images
by Daric Gill
Absolute Orchid (Orchid’s Empty). Oil on wood panel. 11″ x 17 1/4″. 2008
We all love when a great idea travels along a bolt of lightning and blazes right into our skulls. But there’s also something really satisfying about a slow rolling brainstorm that overtime builds into something great. These kinds of ideas seem as if they need time to simmer down to a distilled form; extracting, refining, and aging to something far more potent. The latter of the two was the case for the origins of the Absolute paintings.
It so happens that the first in the Absolute series is also the last piece in a deconstructed triptych. The previous triptych actually starts as a portrait painting and ends in a still life. Originally titled Orchid’s Empty, this painting sat as an unknown transition piece for a few years.
In fact, I stopped making still lives altogether after undergraduate school. The brutal truth is that trompe l’oeil paintings (a painting style used to deceive the eye) is often a study about the ‘objectness’ of the still life rather than the pursuit of a complex concept. I realized I didn’t have any place for that limitation and I stuck to sculpture and portrait paintings until I had something more meaty to hold onto. Graduate school came and went as with my stint as a teacher, and I still felt a little disenchanted.
For a while, I almost gave up painting altogether…
Daric Gill 
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