Jilli Darling

Born: 1984

Hometown: Toronto

Based in: Berlin, Germany

Jilli Darling aka Jill Castillo is a visual artist born in Quezon City, Philippines. She has made Berlin her home and workspace, leaving traces of her former lives in the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Ireland, and the UK.

Jilli developed a strong foundation in Fine Arts early on, receiving classical training at an Art Academy during her elementary school years. She studied and obtained her Bachelors of Design in Toronto, Canada and had worked as a graphic and digital designer prior to pursuing painting full-time.

Statement
My art is a journey within the Self; modes within my conscious stream of being, the internal scape externalised as visual abstractions representative of a dichotomy within. Informed by a longing for balance, a mediation of textures and colours shifting between a dynamic boldness, to calm and quiet dispositions.

Through shifts of perspective, colours are pitted against each other to achieve harmony. Markings are meditations of thought, of memory, of daydreaming. With a childlike curiosity, a bright and playful energy manifests into large formats. Working primarily with acrylic and oils, and musing in inks and charcoal on paper, the artist jumps between landscapes within herself, evolving, regressing, exploring.

Jilli Darling In The Studio

More About Jilli Darling

Question Icon What inspires you?

I'm inspired by colours and the harmony or contrast they can have with each other. Imagery that invites a sense of being elsewhere through the colours and forms they generate.

Question Icon Describe your creative process.

I like the whole “start anywhere" approach to a project, where I just need to put anything on the canvas. Recently I like painting a version of the sky first in the background; some type of sunset, dusk or darkening. I’ve always loved the colour that sunsets create and so I’ve started my paintings with these colours that make me happy. As for knowing when it’s done, it’s a thing that you just feel when you’re a creator of something. Something innate that’s very internal that signals to you and only you that you’ve come full process.

Question Icon What are 3 words that best describe your work?

Dynamic, bold, playful

Question Icon What is the most important tool when creating your work?

An open and playful mind and able body.

Question Icon What is the best piece of advice you have been given?

An advice given to me from another artist when I was still thinking about making the leap is that if I want to be an artist, I simply had to do it. What I realised in doing it was that I will constantly and forever more be doing it.

Question Icon Where do you go for inspiration?

To me, one can find inspiration anywhere. Whether galleries and museums with curated contents, or even somewhere much more available like social media and the internet. I like to look at artists that I admire and see what they're doing and who they are looking at.