Phil Reynolds

BA (Hons) Fine Art

During the past ten years Phil has developed an elaborate art practice encompassing mixed media drawing and painting. In this current exhibition he hones a theme that looks at an imaginary landscape that is evocative because of what is left out. In this case the white gesso, which is as considered as the colour within. The brightness is a response to light and brilliance. The wide strip or belt represents an expansive journey.

Let us consider drawings, which give us the joyful sense of fullness with the greatest economy of means […] One might say that spirit is speaking to spirit. And yet, the weight of the human being is here in all its impulsive vivacity, and with it is the magic power of the hand that henceforth nothing can impede or delay even when it proceeds slowly in anxious study.

                                    Henri Focillon   The Life of Forms in Art

Personal profile

Phil was born in York in 1964. After being co-owner of a betting shop from 1985-92 he took a foundation course in art and design at York College, looking at the techniques of Titian and the Impressionists. 

This led to a Fine Art degree at Sheffield Hallam University. There he became particularly interested in the works of Francis Bacon and Jean Dubuffet. More recent influences include the abstract expressionists and the St Ives painters particularly Peter Lanyon.

Phil has shown across Yorkshire and has developed a reputation for being a broadly skilled practitioner and tutor of life drawing and painting.

Figurative work lies comfortably next to abstract. Neither shaming the other.