Chip Neville, MFA
Biography
Chip Neville is the owner of Chip Neville LLC, and Backwater Bayou Publishing. A seasoned educator, musician, and visual artist his work covers a diverse set of topics ranging from humor to politics with an emphasis on local environmental issues.
As a traditional and new media artist he works with local art organizations such as the Salvador Dali Museum, and The Tampa Museum of Art. He has exhibited work at film festivals and galleries locally and across the country showing animation, photography, and installation combined with musical and thematic performance. He worked for over 40 years as a print based graphic designer and extensively during that time as an illustrator for the State of Florida, and in children’s educational publishing creating more than twenty internationally published, award winning children’s books.
While active in the local music and arts community, Chip regularly works teaching digital illustration for the University of Tampa in Film, Animation, and New Media department. During his almost 30 years of teaching, he has been on the faculties of the St. Petersburg College in the digital media department, Art Institute of Tampa In the Digital Film and Video Production program, the International Academy of Design and Technology in support of multiple departments, and the University of South Florida in the Community Music Division.
General Artist’s Statement
The themes in my work tend mostly towards cultural critique, and advocacy for environmental issues through humor and allegory. I frequently synthesize my surroundings into reflections or commentary on my experiences. Visually, I am very fond of figure ground reversal, hidden imagery, and optical effects. I tend towards abstraction with strong color and rich textures. In my installation work, I employ a wide variety of medium ranging from metal and wood sculpture to optics, electronics, and mechanical details.
I find many things I do creatively are to achieve a balance, like adding audio to my visual art in animation. My use of digital technology for music and visual work is balanced by pursuing traditional methods such as observational drawing and playing classical guitar. I find balance in combining the visual of film with its audio, and the music album with its visual accompaniments. Ultimately there is little philosophical difference in my approach to what I do musically, visually, or sculpturally. Being diverse in my interest has afforded me a unified view and approach. I try to incorporate all the arts (theater, dance, music, sculpture, print, video/film, etc.), using the same language and having basically the same goal. That goal is to communicate more than a word, more than a look. A concept so sublime that the only effective expression of it is through the various arts utilizing aural, visual, and physical techniques to communicate with its’ audience.
