Matt Phillips

Widely recognized as an innovator and avid supporter of the monotype medium, Matt Phillips has dedicated himself solely to this versatile medium.  During his residencies at Aurobora, Matt Phillips created two distinct series of monotypes based on Egyptian market scenes and images that pertain to the seashore.

The artist’s work is deceptively simple.  Strongly based on representational imagery, Phillips’s loose and impressionistic handling of the inks evoke, rather than depict, the landscapes, interiors and still lifes that he has become known for throughout his artistic career. His images are indeed distillations of the very essence of observation and sensation and are attentive to the human form and its natural rhythms.  The artist achieves this by retrieving the white of the paper and then investing importance to these areas.  With economy of gesture, Phillips evokes both the bustling atmosphere and back alleys of the Egyptian Souk as well as the tranquility and ease of the coastal shoreline– depicting the underlying essence of a particular landscape.

AUROBORA PROJECTS

April 1993
January 1994

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA; Whitney Museum of American Art; Joseph Hirshorn Collection, Washington, DC; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln NE; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; New York Public Library, New York, NY; Philadelphia Public Library; The National Gallery, Rosenwald Collection, Washington, DC; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Akron Art Institute, Akron, OH; California Palace of the Legion of Honor (Achenbach), San Francisco, CA; University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ; Bates College, Lewiston, ME; New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH; Elvenhjem Art Center, University of Wisconsin; Huntsville Museum, Birmingham, AL; Bard College, Annandale, NY; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ; North Carolina Museum, Raleigh, NC; Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA; National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC