Andrew Phillips

Website: http://www.AndrewVPhillips.co.uk

Email: aphillips.arts@gmail.com

Click on a thumbnail image above to enlarge.

Statement

Mixed media drawings incorporating a combination of indian ink, graphite, acrylic, and pastel, form the heart of my practice. The style is a juxtaposition of fine mark making, and a more gestural application of crushed pastel, applied using the fingertips. These contrasting methods point to both the delicate intricacy, and pure physicality of Nature.

Of all Nature’s forms, Mountains especially remind us of our capacity for awe, as they exist between the finite and the eternal — the threshold of the known and unknown. The drawings inhabit this imaginal space, responding to the presence of the physical world, and an inner, more intangible expression of mystery. This is what draws me to the North, in both the geographic sense as a place of invigorating and wild spaces, and spiritually, where North can symbolise a transformative place at the edge of the natural and supernatural. This tendency to North is tempered by longing, and infused with the land which I am of, the South Downs.

I regard felt experiences of landscape to be part of an intuitive conversation with the land as entity - not merely a consequence of our own human projections but a participation mystique. The artwork is, in part, an act of devotion to the body of Earth, a way to engage the Spirit of Place, and distill a tangible essence of the 'skull beneath the skin' of landscape through image.

Biography

EXHIBITIONS

2019
Visual Arts Scotland 'Alight' - Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

2018
SSA Annual Exhibition - Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

'A Darkening Thread' - With Kenris MacLeod, Coburg House, Leith - September

Garden Room Gallery, art.earth, Dartington Hall -19th June to 25th July 2018

2017
'It's All in The Detail' Charity Postcard Exhibition - Detail Framing Studio, Edinburgh

'At The Edge Of Your Senses' (solo) - Detail Framing Studio, Edinburgh

Rock Trust charity postcard exhibition & auction - Summerhall, Edinburgh

'Before We Were Even Dreamed' (Joint show with Rowan Paton Risby) - Whitespace, Edinburgh

Spring Group Show - House for an Art Lover (Cafe gallery), Glasgow

​2016
'Knowing Another is Endless' (solo) - Cameo Picturehouse, Edinburgh

Society of Scottish Artists, annual show - Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh

Royal Scottish Academy Open - Edinburgh

Identity Through Landscape' - House for an Art Lover (Cafe gallery), Glasgow

'Stuffed' - Newave Gallery, Aberdeen

2015
Royal Scottish Academy Open - Edinburgh

National Open Art exhibition, Moving Image category

Nature - Light, Space & Time (Web-based)

'Bells From the Deep' - Hundred Years Gallery, London

'Identity/Memory' – Gallery on the Corner, London

​Andrew grew up on the South coast of England, in proximity to the South Downs. This landscape has remained a strong influence, and inspiration upon him. Whilst studying Fine Art at the University of Wales, Andrew became aware of the propensity towards healing inherent in nature, through the spoil heaps remaining from the coal mining industry. Noticing how these were beginning to form part of a new landscape, and becoming home to plants and animals anew, this theme of woundedness and healing in the outer landscape resonated with a growing interest in psyche and spiritual practice.



After returning to the South Andrew trained as an Art Psychotherapist at Goldsmiths College, London, whilst working in adult mental health services in the NHS. After qualifying, and working full time as a therapist for a period, Andrew acted on a long held desire to move north, pulled by a closer proximity to mountainous landscape.



Since moving to Edinburgh Andrew has developed his art practice in accordance with his interests in landscape, and the Soul, and has exhibited his drawings in exhibitions including the Royal Scottish Academy open, and Society of Scottish Artists annual show. Andrew has also developed a form of group work ‘Creen Craft - Bearing witness to Soul through art and landscape’ - which fuses art making and conversation, as a means to reinvigorate our capacity for Awe, Courage, and Beauty, through creating art in service to Nature.



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