Exhibitions
JERRY PHILLIPS: MAYBE NOTHING WAS SAID/MIGHT BE CONTINUED
Tops Gallery / 400 S. Front St. December 10, 2016 - February 4, 2017
Jerry Phillips
Tops Gallery is pleased to announce maybe nothing was said/might be continued, an exhibition of drawing and sculpture by Jerry Phillips.
Using a variety of found photographic images and texts as inspiration, Phillips renders details from these sources in lush drawings that speak to the complexities of expression and communication. For the exhibition at Tops, Phillips' selection of drawings reflects several visual strategies for addressing these themes. Some drawings consist of abstracted fragments that hint at a larger picture, while other drawings combine random images superimposed upon each other and are rendered so as to create a suggestive visual dialogue between layers. In one drawing a small detail from a photo of an Apollo lunar module is reduced to an interplay of graphite shadows which seductively deny their subject while hinting at something elusive and indecipherable. Another drawing combines the image of a celebrity hiding her face with that of a detail of a prison uniform, overlaid to suggest a narrative relationship which begs for interpretation, yet is ultimately arbitrary. A different series of drawings consists of copies of deleted texts from historical literary manuscripts that portray moments of creation in which second thoughts arise and communication is revised. The drawings are realized by applying multiple layers of graphite to achieve a seductive surface quality that is built up in a way that feels more like a burnished impression than traditional draughtsmanship. This effortful, but subtle process personalizes the found image through the artist's deep engagement.
In addition to drawings, Phillips is presenting three-dimensional work in porcelain and black light that illuminates ideas about artistic production and the quest for a successfully articulated art object.
Jerry Phillips lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was born in Marshalltown, Iowa in 1958 and received his BA from Florida State University and his MFA from the California Institute for the Arts. Phillips' work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at Artists Space, New York, NY, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo, NY; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY, Feature Inc., New York, NY; Blondeau & Cie, Geneva, Switzerland and Good Weather, North Little Rock, AR. His drawings are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Museum Overholland, Amsterdam.
