Jeremy Phillips

Satellite Gallery Show

March 2016

Statement

Why make paintings anymore?  For me they are something solid in a digital world, images that linger long after the media circus has flown by, perpetual presences that invite you to linger rather than flit off to the next piece of eye candy. A painting should be something you can live with and that keeps talking back.

When I think of painting in the internet age, the physical qualities of the work become central – the surface texture, the way the light plays off the paint, the accidents of application, the revelations of underlayers, the juxtaposition of thickness and color, the material of the support, even the underlying stretchers.

Content, beyond the play of form, is a relished addition.  The abstracted interiors of rooms or apartment blocks, the visual games of optical illusions and impossible shapes, QR codes as the new altars of digital consumption, the ultimacy of zero or it’s pairing with a one that gives rise to everything else (digitally, of course, it’s all ones and zeros); these are prompts for thoughts to take further.

Painting is also about a conversation with other art. Building on the work of artists like Sol Lewitt, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Sigmar Polke, I want to add my own voice to the questions their art raises (like “What is a painting?”, “What is beautiful?” and “What kinds of things can be a subject for a painting?”, and “How can I use older images to make something new?”), and try to offer some of my own solutions.

I hope the results feed the eye as well as the mind, with a luscious use of oil paint, commercial fabrics, strong bright colors, and sharp lines.  As one friend said to me, paintings these days have to pop! Sometimes deceptively simple and sometimes intriguingly complex, these visual puzzles intend to keep your eyes peeled.