Reynolds Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of “Teenage Poems”, a solo exhibition of all new paintings by Matt Phillips. The exhibition opens on Friday, November 14, 2025 with a public reception from 5 – 7 pm. The show runs through December 23.
Phillips employs a distinctive method of painting, applying a minimal amount of paint to create delicate surfaces. The thin layers of pigment act as inner sources of light. His strokes pool and meet to form wavy edges, resembling crinkled paper. The implied texture in his work imbues each luminous piece with a sense of breath – they are full of life and animation.
“High Tide (for B.J.)”, 2025, Pigment and silica on canvas, 30 x 24 inches
“Furl”, 2025, Pigment and silica on canvas, 30 x 24 inches
This exhibition marks a shift for Phillips, presenting a more intimate and focused exploration through a series of uniformly sized works. Though still grounded in his ongoing practice, the show is a departure from his previous large-scale installations. The consistent dimensions create a cohesive and contemplative viewing experience. With the words, “teenage poems”, at the forefront of his mind, Phillips allows his emotional responses and vulnerability to guide him through his process, resulting in compositions of colorful, deeply personal reflections that encourage introspection.
“Refuge”, 2025, Pigment and silica on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
There is something mildly embarrassing about the implied vulnerability that these two words carry. When combined, they become almost dangerous in their earnestness. This collection of recent paintings has little to do with nostalgia or literature. Rather than providing insight into my imagery, the phrase “Teenage Poems” became something like an emotional compass I held onto while making this body of work. As my life as an artist unfolds, I find myself constantly curious about the moments when I feel surprised or naïve within my practice. What once felt like something to generally avoid is now something I actively seek out and explore.
While these new paintings are squarely rooted in my ongoing studio practice, they also offer fresh glimpses into new worlds and visual situations. The surfaces of these pictures are intimate and painted with small brushes. They are delivered from the wrist and at times feel as much written as painted. These paintings often start using rational visual motifs such as the grid or one point perspective. These impersonal scaffoldings are quickly altered and amended to include more complex shapes, less stable compositions, and forms that are reminiscent of things in the observable world. I am most excited when my personal involvement with the formal concerns of composition, color, and illusion give way to the metaphorical and human.
– Matt Phillips, 2025
About the Artist
Matt Phillips is a painter living in Brooklyn, NY. His 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. Color, shape, mark and form engage one another in both strange and familiar ways, becoming tense, humorous, quirky and ultimately meaningful.
Matt Phillips has had solo exhibitions at Louis Buhl & Co, Detroit, MI; Anna Zorina Gallery, New York, NY; Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL; The Landing Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, VA; Direktorenhaus Museum, Berlin, Germany; Studio d’Arte Raffaelli, Trento, Italy; Devening Projects, Chicago, IL; Zillman Art Museum, Bangor Maine; and Steven Harvey, New York, NY. He has participated in group exhibitions at The Pit, Los Angeles, CA; Harper’s, New York, NY; The Hole, New York, NY; Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Hollis Taggart, New York, NY; and Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson, NY. Phillips has been an artist-in-residence at The Fores Project, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony. He is represented by the Reynolds Gallery, Mindy Solomon Gallery and The Landing Gallery.