Expanding Art with Philip Chouinard

BY CASSIA COLLINS July 31 09

Local artist Philip Chouinard feels his art deep within his soul. Since high school, Philip has been intrigued by art and felt a certain passion for it. His art teacher back at St. Anne’s High School, before it was one of the largest schools in Essex County, taught him how to appreciate art from many different angles. Chouinard explored art through still-life practice, field trips to museums, and encouraging camaraderie between artists.

After high school, Philip continued on at St. Clair College, pursuing a Commercial Arts (now Graphic Design) degree. From there, he moved to Boston for a short period of time and was accepted into the Art Institute of Boston. “I didn’t actually go; it was too expensive at the time. It was really just an ego boost to be accepted because the program was so selective,” says Philip. While he lived there, he began to work on things like landscape design and ikebana, which is the Japanese art of floral arranging. He also attended the University of Windsor for Fine Arts.

He has done a great deal of travel over the years; sometimes for work, sometimes for pleasure. Often when he visits another country he tries to find museums and art related attractions. One of his favourite galleries to visit is the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York. However, no matter how much travelling he does, he still considers Windsor home, and he appreciates it for all that it is, with its familiar comforts as well as its art base.

Philip is not the kind of person to limit himself. He likes to experiment with various forms of both traditional and non-traditional art. While he does paint and sculpt pottery, he has also worked with interior design, product design, screen printing and landscaping, among other endeavours. Currently, he works for a magazine called Everyday Style as a product designer.

As a product designer, he does photo-shoot setup; he works with space, lighting, and colour. As well, Philip writes copy for the magazine. There are even times when he gets to go on business trips around the world, like last year when he went to China. Also, while he is currently working on designing the interior of his own home, he still does interior design when he finds the time.

It would appear that working these jobs that are art-related can actually really help artists because while Philip prepares his ideas for a person’s decor, he can show clients his own art if he feels it would work well in the room so that they might buy it as well. On top of personally showing his art to clients, Philip also has art in the Nancy Johns Gallery, has done a few art shows in the past, and has also had a few of his pieces featured in the October issue of Style at Home. He goes on to say that “motivation is three-quarters of the work. You have to put yourself out there. You might be rejected but you won’t get anywhere if you don’t try.”

“Beauty is abstract and means so many different things to so many different people,” Philip explains. He says that one of the many reasons he loves art so much is because it is so subjective. Philip describes his own paintings as abstract and explains that they’re usually expressions of emotion put onto canvas. Considering his method of painting, it isn’t so hard to believe that he keeps a canvas ready at all times. His pottery, unfortunately, cannot be quite as expressive as owning your own wheel and kiln is very expensive. He does a lot of vase and bowl work however, and when he finishes with a piece on the wheel he likes to do a bit of freeform sculpting for an added touch.

Philip describes art as a need and desire in his life. He is inspired by life and emotion and feels freed by his paintings. He explains how he doesn’t necessarily like to paint for commission or use small-scale canvases as they are too restrictive. Tedious work isn’t what he’s after when he does his art. As he is an expressive painter, it is understandable that he does not do it for anyone but himself. Though he does enjoy having someone like and buy his paintings, he does not generally aim to please a specific market. His paintings sell for around $650, whereas his pottery can sell from $70 to $200, depending on how much he loves the piece and how much work he put into it.

For whatever reason, Philip explains that most of his inspiration to paint comes during the winter months. So there will hopefully be plenty to look forward to from him very soon. For now though, appreciation can be shown for his work in Everyday Style.