Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeremy Phillips
Hi Jeremy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I liked to draw and paint like other kids when I was very young, but it was in high school in suburban Philadelphia that I became fascinated with art history and painting in particular. Seeing works by Mark Rothko and Cy Twombly and Marcel Duchamp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as discovering the Bay Area Figurative artists like Richard Diebenkorn all led to a deeper engagement with painting. I was mainly working, though, with ceramics for those years and it was not until I was living in London in 2003 and had no access to a clay studio that I dove into a painting practice myself. If I couldn’t buy paintings I loved, but I could try to make them on my own! I had my first show in Camden Town, London and have never stopped making new work. I came back to Asheville in 2008 and began showing work locally the next year. For me painting is a way of life, where the current work and new ideas are always on my mind and leading to further explorations. I’ve developed several different bodies of work, digging in to different ideas with many permutations and variations. I like to see where a painting idea can go and how far.
I’ve had 7 solo shows and 4 two-person shows and participated in 10 group shows in the Carolinas. This summer, I’m greatly looking forward to a large show with the USC Upstate Gallery in Spartanburg. To be able to share my paintings with people who can enjoy them and have art in their homes or places of business that add beauty and thoughtfulness and style to their lives is a great joy. Artistic practice feeds itself and is a rich and satisfying way to live.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Is there such a thing as a smooth road? Learning the painting craft and getting better, taking creative risks and trying to put yourself out in the world are always challenging aspects of being an artist to me. One of the most challenging aspects for me is the ongoing self-promotion that is required of most artists these days. Few of us have regular and effective gallery representation and that means a good chunk of time has to put into promoting your work online and on social media and in keeping up with new opportunities. Mostly, I just want to paint, but the realities of needing to sell are sometime daunting!
I have had a studio in Asheville’s River Arts District since 2020 in the Pink Dog Creative. Helene floods came within a couple inches of inundating our space, but we were largely spared the worst and have survived. But so many other friends and fellow artists were not so lucky and the whole district has seen a massive reduction in people visiting the studios. This has been a big hit for all of us. We are hopeful that this spring will see a return of visitors to Asheville and the River Arts District.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have three bodies of work that I’ve been exploring for a few years now. The first series is suburban nightscapes. The way the fluorescent street lights illuminate the regular houses, trees, mailboxes and sidewalks of my West Asheville neighborhood creates a strangeness that I want my painting to do to our normal perceptions of reality. I like how painting helps you see the familiar in a new way.
Secondly, based on Gerhard Richter’s townscapes, I started a series of 50″ x 50″ aerial landscapes based on satellite imagery. Each painting contains a building I lived in at some point in my wandering life! These two series will be prominent in my show coming up at the USC Upstate Gallery in Spartanburg.
Finally, I have a show up of 29 works of collaged vinyl record material (covers, vinyl, sleaves) at Citizen Vinyl in downtown Asheville (through Feb 26). I take scrap records that no record store can sell, or that end up in the Goodwill bins, or that were jettisoned from Helene floods and turn them into new images and uses. This is work that celebrates the physical properties of records and their covers, turning them into fresh mediums for collage, sculptural pieces, realist imagery and abstraction.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Every painting is a risk. If it is not, then it is not the kind of art I’m interested in. I like to NOT know how I am going to achieve the initial idea that set the painting in motion. This means that I can never be too confident or too sure of myself. For me there HAS to be an exploration and challenge in each painting. If I knew exactly what to do, and knew exactly how the painting will turn out, then the risk is gone and my own interest goes with it. So I like risk and trying new things in painting: larger sizes, new materials, more complex or more simple subject matter. The pleasure is in figuring it out as you go – and achieving something I can live with.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jeremyphillipsart.com
- Instagram: @jeremyphillipsart
