renee phillips
selected work 2015-2025
Since 2012, Renee has been experimenting in the studio, pushing material to its limits in order to test and document the resulting effect of each color, material, substrate and medium. It is from these experiments that Renee is able to translate what often seems the language of chance, onto the canvas with deliberate interpretation. Each series highlights years worth of alchemical techniques that are predominately based on environmental factors – location, temperature, and humidity.
Controlled Chaos often employs wild posters from the New York City streets that are layered, sprayed and hand-sanded down. Meditations captures her further investigation into the language of color, while the Liminal Series aims to freeze moments of transition as paint meets the elements of wind, water or gravity.
“Though the work seems to contain the language of chance, texture and materiality, it is, in fact, the result of a rigid scientific process. After repeatedly testing her methods under varied circumstances, Phillips knew exactly how her materials would behave under different conditions of humidity, temperature and air flow.”
Zi Lin - Art Writing MFA
explore the series
phenomena
2024 - 2025
Entering a new phase that reverses Phillips signature additive process with a gesture of material excavation. Sanding through strata of color, surfaces expose rhythmic forms of anatomical, cellular or topographical patterns.
liminal series
2016 - present
Renee Phillips' latest series, Liminal, explores ideas surrounding rituals, moments of transition, and the associated visceral reaction that ignites physical response. The result is a metamorphosis of paint that looks as if the process itself is frozen in time.
meditations series
2016 - 2021
At the core of Renee’s practice is the study, contemplation and manipulation of color. Revealing each colors ‘signature effect’ with gravity-timed manipulations of enamel, spray paint and acrylic results in seductive, sculptural like color field paintings.
controlled chaos series
2014 - 2018
Exploring creation from a macro & micro level, each piece aims to map a moment in time within the life cycle of our natural world. Utilizing signature alchemical techniques, layers are built up & removed, layer upon layer, to reveal hidden moments that open up a world of new possibility to the observer.
View the Winter Portfolio
