Beachfront

14 x 11″
Acrylic on Paper
By Sherell Chillik

Sherell Chillik was born in 1993 in Detroit, Michigan. She currently lives and works in Flint, Michigan. She received her BFA, in painting, at the College For Creative Studies in 2018. She’s participated in the AICAD Residency in Dumbo, Brooklyn, New York, the Rogers Art Loft Residency in Las Vegas, Nevada, Ox-Bow School of Art and Residency in Saugatuck MI, and the Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass Village, CO.  She teaches public art classes for students with disabilities through Michigan Arts Access.  Her most recent shows include “Atmosphere” at D’Art Gallery in Denver CO, “Art for the Heart and Soul” at the Overlook Hospital Art Auxiliary in Summit, NJ, and “Black Life Ordinary” at the Rotunda Gallery in Las Vegas, NV.

Chillik’s paintings take inspiration from biographical stories surrounding her Christian faith and earthly desires. Through portraiture, she navigates through the natural world with a spiritual lens. Her works document the struggles of carnality juxtaposed with biblical narratives; through themes of contemplation, faith, family, travel, humanity, and daily life experiences. Her interest in depicting the human form realistically is to make art accessible for the public to digest. Through a dark and saturated traditional palette, she creates traditional figurative paintings and landscapes that examine the mental state of being elsewhere but grounded in reality. Her work plays with the dichotomies of the spiritual versus the natural, and reality versus fiction.