 |
John Phillips
Lives and Works in Chicago Education:
Teaching: Adjunct Associate Professor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago |
Link to artist's
bio at the School of the Art Institiute of Chicago
Link to artist's
bio at BODYBUILDER & SPORTSMAN GALLERY
Statement: "These paintings (current work) are part of a body
of work begun in 1987. For ten years prior to that I made very large geometric
abstractions. I see these scroll or ribbon forms as being open ended stand-ins
for that geometry as well as functioning as potential surrogates for the
figure. I would wish that these pieces project a simultaneous "aura" of
the abstract and the figural.
These paintings are generated from small, semi-intuitive "doodles"
that when scaled up, aspire to a certain level of authority as well as
projecting a degree of humor and a specific spirit. While I perceive of
painting as a conceptual activity, a forum for a discourse of visual language,
I want the work to project an optimism and an enthusiasm for actual experience.
I like to think of a painting in terms of its confronting the viewer with
an event. It is my aim that the viewer interact with the work in multiple
ways. By being acted upon by the piece in terms of its scale, gravity,
body english, optical effects and physical presence. By feeling the physical
material reality and the depicted fictions simultaneously. By the viewer
activating it, working the parts, and drawing parallels with other types
of structures.
While this work traffics in ambiguities, contradictions, puns and metaphor,
its means are pared down, direct and always striving for clarity. The paint
is thick and matter-of-factly applied (the grounds and flat shapes are
trowelled on), color specific and often intense. These are, for me, slow,
"hard won" paintings. I strive for difference within the confines of the
givens I work with and am constantly examining the space between individual
works.
Many of the titles are taken from obscure 50's rhythm and blues recordings.
Music plays a major part in my life, and though I am hesitant to define
how, has an influence on my attitudes and work. It has partly to do with
attitudes about pleasure."--John Phillips
Description of art from the artist's biographical summary: "The
elastic, hiccuping gestures, biomorphic shapes, and neon colors of John
Phillip's abstract paintings recall the ebullient optimism expressed in
1950s American Modernist commercial vernacular. The jazz-infused compositions
echo that era's ubiquitous boomerang- and kidney- shaped Frmica patterns
that brought the energy of the atomic age and the tenets of modern design
into main-stream culture."--John Brunetti, Review of John Phillips at I
Space
Back to
untitled by John Phillips
Back
to Artists
List Page
Back to
Quick Reference List of Artists
Back to
Normal
Editions Workshop homepage