Gregory Shilling is an oil painter and muralist from Northern California. Since graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Arts Degree, the up-and-coming artist has been living and working in Sacramento. His eclectic body of work usually focuses on people and explores how a story can be told by a body. Sometimes honest and representational, sometimes exaggerated and surrealist, the figures Shilling puts in paint speak silently with heads hung low, creaky knees and curious fingers. Zooming out, his work also includes vast evening cityscapes full of people, cars, raccoons and street lights. These chaotic oil paintings satiate a detail-hungry viewer with ugly little delights.
Shilling’s biggest influences include Alberto Giacometti, Thomas Hart Benton, Where’s Waldo books, Sainer ETAM, and Bill Watterson but that list changes often.
He is most proud and fulfilled when his art is displayed in public and can be shared by everyone. He is most worried about doing too much graphic design work on the computer and losing touch with the art that comes from deep down in the pits of his soul. And Shilling’s biggest weakness is his tendency to get distracted.
