Philip Chircop

Abstract Expressions

Joseph Paul Cassar, Art Critic, in his book “Philip Chircop – Abstract Expressions” wrote:

Philip Chircop is a key figure of abstract art in Malta. Soon after completing his artistic studies at the Government School of Art, Valletta in 1969, he felt a natural urge to embark on a personal journey of self-discovery free from the ties that restricted him from simply basing his art on objective reality. He explored the world of colour, shape and form through a process of selection, striving to reveal the hidden relations between things. From the onset he embraced the need for intuitive research which required working with an abstract visual language, as opposed to seeking the imitation of the appearance of things.

His abstract expressions show unprecedented freedom of imaginative response, a natural condition that makes use of arbitrary colour schemes, vehement brush-marks, exaggerated rich textures and collage. With these tools at his disposal, Philip Chircop felt empowered to seek and approach the threatening void of an empty canvas, always ready to search for the image of ultimate fullness, realising that behind the visible was a whole world of the invisible, a world of strange untapped forces waiting to be explored and comprehended.

From his humble beginnings his determination from a young age to engage in the world of the visual arts, his innate talents and his rise and involvement in the struggle for modern expression in an island that favoured traditional and conservative thought and principles, the power of Philip Chircop’s abstract paintings lies precisely in its ambiguity. It seems to refer to everything to nothing simultaneously. The hold on specific everyday imagery is forever gone, loosened up by an artistic philosophy that expresses a shift from outward looking to self-reflecting. Sometimes the viewer experiences a sense that Philip Chircop’s abstract paintings are artworks full of decisions. Nothing is there if it is not meant to be there. Anything superfluous is eliminated. Many times his art becomes the surface for resolving visual problems. Philip Chircop collaborates with the driving force that compels him to do art to discover the never-before-seen.