Cheryl Levin began drawing and painting at the age of 12 when her father brought home
a How to Draw Book with instructions showing how to draw a woman carrying a basket
of fruit on her head. This was to become Levin’s subject matter in 1984 when she began
painting people, portraits, and single-parent families after studying art in Rome, Italy.
During her time abroad, she was greatly influenced by ancient Etruscan and Roman art.
When her two children were young and family life became more complicated she turned
to abstract art to conceptualize new realities. In 2012 after the death of her husband,
artist blacksmith Robert Phillips, she began to produce art as a eulogy. Using “metal cutoffs”
salvaged from Phillips’ studio, Levin moved his “remains around” to reorient herself
through her grieving state and to organize chaos from death. She soon progressed to
other formats, including installation pieces as an outgrowth from those works.
