BIOGRAPHY

Chili is an artist and philosopher. Her essays have been syndicated and published in newspapers worldwide (under a different name). She has a doctorate, and teaches in college. She is also a published poet, and a musician and singer. While living in New York City, she was an actress (over 30 national TV and radio appearances), and a model for ads in national magazines such as Vogue, Glamor, and Cosmopolitan. She has traveled widely, and lived in California, Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, and Georgia. She now lives in the Midwest, and for purposes of economy, has narrowed her concentration to art, philosophy, and writing. Her drawings, paintings (oil and acrylic), and murals are in collections nationwide and in Europe, and she has exhibited widely in art shows.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Chili's main influences are Arab and European. First, she is influenced by Mediterranean and Middle Eastern culture, through her membership in the Arab Antiochian Orthodox Church headquartered in Damascus, Syria. Second, she is influenced by a lifelong love of the Fauvists and European Impressionist painters.

Chili's art always begins with a sudden love that arises in response to surprise encounters with truth and beauty. In her art, she explores the wild and infinite possibilities for reacting visually to the mystery, intensity, and closeness of God, whom Chili believes is the sole Source and Origin of truth and beauty and everything that is good. Her work exists in two general modes: (a) colorful and simple expressions of these encounters, edited objectively and subjectively by mind, will, and emotion; and (b) detailed pencil and ink drawings expressing subjective interior experiences. In these drawings, Chili is not afraid to explore the darker emotions which are part of life, such as fear, sadness, and considerations of death. These drawings sometimes involve hybridizing people and elements of nature.