Matt Phillips - Reynolds Gallery

Phillips’ works often employ fundamental elements of painting: simple shapes, modulated values and color relationships. These rather rudimentary components are combined and remixed to produce unexpected outcomes. Using a minimal amount of paint, he creates a delicate surface across his works as thin layers of pigment act as inner sources of light. His strokes pool and meet to form wavy edges, appearing like crinkled paper. Color, shape, mark and form engage one another in both strange and familiar ways, becoming tense, humorous, quirky and ultimately meaningful.

Phillips received his BA in Art and Art History from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA and his MFA in Painting from Boston University (2001, 2007). His recent solo exhibitions include Direktorenhaus Museum, Berlin, Germany; One River School, Englewood, NJ; Studio d’Arte Raffaelli, Trento, Italy; Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, NY (two-person), Devening Projects, Chicago, IL and Steven Harvey, New York, NY. Group exhibitions include Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY; Scotty Enterprises, Berlin, Germany; Ampersand Gallery, Portland, OR; Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA and Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. He has been an artist-in-residence at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. Phillips currently lives in Brooklyn and is a professor of art at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.