Susan Phillips
An interview with An interview by Dario Rutigliano, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator arthabens@mail.com
Porcelain and paper are the mediums that Susan Phillips uses to capture a variety of unexpected relationships between ainsightful exploration of reality and a rational gaze on formality. In her ongoing series entitled Porcelain, that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she has captured the ephemeral qualiy of a variety of geometries that pervade the environement we inhabit, materializing them into a coherent unity and giving them a permanence that goes beyond their intrinsic ephemerality. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production. Hello Susan, and welcome to ART Habens: to start this interview, would you like to tell our readers something about your background? You have a solid formal training and you hold a BA (hons) that you received from the Falmouth College of Arts: how has formal training impacted on your evolution as an artist and in particular, how does it inform the way you currently conceive and produce your works?
Susan Phillips
I have had an interest in making and constructing from an early age. A school course age 14 first properly introduced me to clay, and a workshop environment. An A level art and design course then followed introducing me to Abstraction, to Cubism and constructed art, and the process of printmaking. It was here whilst also studying psychology that I first learnt an independant way of working and the structure of designing and producing work that I still follow today.
Susan Phillips studied BA (hons) at Falmouth College of Arts, and has exhibited in Wales and London. In 2014 she was awarded the Gold Medal for Craft and Design at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, as well as being shortlisted for the Soho Sculpture Prize.
Multidisciplinarity is a crucial feature of your work, that reveals an incessant search of an organic, almost intimate symbiosis between ceramic and paper, and I would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.susanphillipssculpture.co.uk in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted artistic production: before
During my degree course in Falmouth, I was introduced to porcelain, and to Modernism through the work of artists Hepworth, Nicholson and Gabo in nearby St.Ives. Also to Minimalism, to Serra and Judd.
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