Kevin Phillips
Past Artist In Residence
2003

The painter, Kevin Phillips, from Northern Ireland, attempts to express and clarify his own personal experience within his work. His paintings are multi-layered, allowing disparate elements the chance to create and suggest new and often exciting ways forward. He feels as if a specific quote from Goethe is an appropriate representation of his feelings about his paintings. It reads as follows, “The beginning and end of all literary activity is the reproduction of the world that surrounds me by means of the world that is in me, all things being grasped, related, molded and reconstructed in a personal form and original manner.” Phillips’ recent works were made in response to specific places within Cumbria. He says “the unique qualities of the Cumbrian landscape help me to see and think clearly, enabling me to formulate color relationships and structures in order to produce paintings, which I hope touch upon the spirit of the place.”