It is tempting to categorize Curtis Phillips’ art as – simply as – a continuation of the great tradition of landscape painting. We are led to this easy conclusion by the obvious debt Phillips’ work owes to everything from min-17th century Dutch landscape (Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan van Goyen, Salomon van Ruisdael, Philips Koninck) to early Barbizon (Georges Michel, Theodore Rousseau) to German romantic painters (Caspar David Friedrick, Arnold Bocklin) to the painters of the American West (Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, Frederick Edwin Church) – and for that matter, the American East (the Hudson River School, the Luminists) – and even “postmodern” landscapists such as April Gornik, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter. But Phillips’ painting is no more bound by its models then its models were and are bound by theirs. His work embodies intellectual and spiritual pretensions that expand far beyond self-conscious historicism. Phillips’ landscapes mean something more than landscape.

At the same time, these landscape paintings mean “landscape” so emphatically, so palpably, so wholly, that, if anything, they obviate their artistic roots in their search for transcendence. Phillips may work with foreknowledge of Ruisdael, Rousseau, and Richter; but, encouraged (and technically influenced) as he may be by their models, they do not at basis motivate him. Rather, it is the landscape itself – the visual/physical presence of landscape and the very idea of landscape – that motivates Phillips to paint landscapes, and to paint them as he does.

 

-Peter Frank, Los Angeles

 

Illumination represents Phillips newest body of work where we see him further exploring the notion of painting space as opposed to objects. These paintings also reflect the artist’s unabashed interest in classic painterly surfaces, impasto layering, beeswax, and heavy brushstrokes. Letting the lessons of academic painting inform his uniquely contemporary artwork, Phillips takes bold steps towards a new kind of imagery

 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

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2014 Addington Gallery, Chicago, IL

2013 Seek Art, New York, New York

2012 Graeter Gallery, Portland, OR

2011, 2010, 2005 Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Beverly Hills, Ca

2007 Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Beverly Hill, CA

2006 Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Bangkok, Thailand

2006 Cheryl Hazan Gallery, NYC, NY

2004 Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Recent Paintings, Portland, OR

2003 Timothy Yarger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

2002 Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Fieldwork, Portland, OR

Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Arboreal, Portland, OR

2001 Timothy Yarger Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Miniatures, Portland, OR

2000 Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Contemporary Landscape Paintings, Beverly Hills, CA

Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Lambent: New Paintings, Portland, OR

1999 Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Beverly Hills, CA

Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Atmospherics, Portland, OR

O’Hara Gallery, New York, NY

1998 Lyman Allyn Art Museum, Connecticut College, Imaginary Landscapes,

New London, CT

Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Miniatures, Portland, OR

Christy Stubbs Gallery, Dallas, TX

1997 O’Hara Gallery, New York, NY

Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Portland, OR

1996 Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Introduction, Portland, OR

1995 Jamison Thomas Gallery, Portland, OR

1993 Several Thoughts Gallery, Seattle, WA

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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

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2018 Addington Gallery, Chicago, IL

2015 Yarger Fine Art, Beverly Hills, CA

2015, 2010 Addington Gallery, Chicago, IL

2014 Seek Art, New York, NY

2014, 2012 Graeter Gallery, Portland, OR

2012 Yarger Fine Art, Beverly Hills, CA

2012 Cheryl Hazan Gallery, New York, NY

2011 Affordable Art Fair, Yarger Fine Art, NY

LA Art Show, Los Angeles, CA

Cheryl Hazan Gallery, New York, NY

Red Show, Cheryl Hazan Gallery, NY

Chicago Art Fair, Chicago, IL

2007, 2006, 2004 Los Angeles Art Show, presented by the Fine Art Dealers

Association, Benefiting the Art Museum Council of LACMA

2004 Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Western Perspectives, Vancouver, BC

2003 Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Bangkok, Thailand

2002 Charles Hespe Gallery, Springscapes, San Francisco, CA

1998 New Art Center, Newton, MA, Lost in the Woods: Foliage and Form at the Turn

of the Century, curated by Randi Hopkins, Assistant Curator of Contemporary

Art, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Miami Art Fair ‘98, O’Hara Gallery, Miami, FL

Art Dealer’s of America Art Fair, Armory, New York, NY

1997 O’Hara Gallery, Winter Invitational: Seven Artists, New York,

Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery

Seattle Art Fair ‘97, Seattle Convention Center, Seattle, WA

1996 Pulliam Deffenbaugh Gallery, Triton Contemporary Art Fair, Triton Hotel, San

Francisco, CA

1995 Portland Art Museum, Oregon Biennial, juried by William Fagley, Portland, OR

Jamison Thomas Gallery, Fifteen Years, closing show, Portland, OR

1994 Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR

1993 Friesen Gallery, Visual Sound III, Seattle, WA

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SELECTED COLLECTIONS

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Lyman-Allyn Museum, Connecticut College, New London, Conn.

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Portland, Oregon

Philip Morris Inc., New York, New York

Peter Klein Collection, Nussdorf, Germany

Ashforth Pacific, Portland, Oregon

Campfire Audio, Portland, Oregon

Nicolas Cage, Los Angeles, California

Denzel Washington, Los Angeles, California

Madeleine Stowe, Los Angeles, California

John Milius, Los Angeles, California

Hanlon Brown Design, Portland, Oregon

Strobe Zine and Assoc., Vancouver, Washington

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Steve Elder. Concordia, November 13, 2018

D.K. Row. "Cloudy skies...", Oregonian, August 24, 2004

Richard Speer. Willamette Week, December 11, 2002

D.K. Row. "Review", Oregonian, December 5, 2002

Camilla Raymond. "Subtle landscapes of the subconscious", Oregonian, July 19,

2000

Jay Bowyer Bell. Review Magazine, April 1, 1999

D.K. Row. "Phillips on Phillips", Oregonian, June 14, 1999

Toni Hulse. "Imaginary Landscapes", Lyman Allyn Museum catalogue for exhibition,

October 3 - December 31, 1998

Christine Temin. "'Lost' finds way with Nature", The Boston Globe, April 8, 1998

Jamie James. The New Yorker, September 22, 1997

Gregory Tozian. "Brave new worlds: Curtis Phillips gets ready to paint New York red",

Anodyne Magazine, September 1997