101/EXHIBIT Los Angeles is pleased to present Arizona-based artist Colin Chillag and his new collection of abstract portrait paintings. Colin’s portraits are a delicate balance of hyper-realism and abstraction while revealing captured moments in time—color pallette, preparatory rendering, rhythmic brushwork and unfinished spaces—allowing the viewer to experience each step of the artistic procedure. Colin Chillag Portraits will be on exhibit January 19 through March 9, 2013.

Colin Chillag is a devoted portrait painter who graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute and later migrated to Phoenix, Arizona. Colin’s portraits are a unexpected mix of hyper-realism and contemporary abstraction. Colin’s work captures time while his paintings reveal unfinished areas that expose preliminary drawing, paint pallette and underpainting. All of the exposed information is left for the viewer to examine Chillag’s process and mentally complete each work. “While I engage in a highly illusionistic form of painting, I have no real desire to complete the illusion by finishing a painting.”

Juxtapoz writes, “Chillag constructs these pieces like passing memories, where certain details remain but others fleeting.”Appropriate, as portrait painting expresses Colin’s creative vision to deconstruct the process of interpretation and consciousness experienced while seeking understanding in the world that surrounds him. “In actuality any good realist painting requires an extreme degree of inventiveness... and to some degree obscures the direct experience which it intends to communicate.”

“The new body of work is primarily based on personal snapshots. Places I have gone, people I know, etc… My everyday, life experiences and love for documentaries, science, philosophy, nature and history is where it all starts for me.”

Colin Chillag (1971, Syracuse, NY), currently lives and works in Phoenix, Arizona. Chillag’s work has been exhibited at theArizona State University Art Museum, Cal State Fullerton and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Colin’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions in Miami and Los Angeles and numerous group shows over the past twelve years. Colin is featured in the permanent collection of Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and Arizona State University Art Museum. Colin Chillag presents a new exhibition of portrait-inspired paintings January 19 - March 9, 2013 with a public art opening Saturday, January 19, 7pm to 10pm.

101/EXHIBIT is a contemporary art program dedicated to presenting international emerging and established talent. Spanning multiple mediums, with a particular focus on figurative painting and drawing, the gallery engages its audience with a finely-tuned roster of artists in consistent and flourishing states of production in practice. 101/EXHIBIT is unique in its two fold mission to promote the artist and to inspire the collector. Founded by Sloan Schaffer in 2008, the gallery is situated within the heart of Miami’s Design District with a second space in West Hollywood, California.