In the exhibition catalogue Oliver Friggieri writes:
An essential relationship unites these paintings, as if they were a definitive set of variations on a theme. Apart from the fact that they were created within a few successive number of years, they convey the idea of continuity, a sort of process which far transcends the visual aspect and its predominant components. Philip Chircop is translating feelings into images, and these are feelings of being somewhere, of apprehending the mystery of being in terms of a particular special sensations. Subjectivity, however restrained, is the key motive.
In this sense, therefore, these works are spiritual landscapes, visual rendering of a state of mind. Whatever it is, one dominant perception of the physical environment underlies all these paintings; it is identifiable in the consistency with which Chircop constructs his newly discovered forms, reminiscent of real objects, and indeed completely different. His colourful shapes seem to evoke the contours of a known reality which has now assumed a special, subjective character.
Chircop may be described as a psychological realist, a painter whose main concern is to portray the innermost world of feeling, imagination and memory. His journey is only physical, The real point of arrival is somewhere between perception and the experience of dreaming. The simplicity with which he constructs his spiritual portraits must be in actual fact the end product of a complex process. The act of painting here becomes meditation.
