phillipstosch

[phillipstosch]

TALENT - COMMITMENT - IMAGINATION

[phillipstosch]

Ashley Brokaw: Fashion’s Most Unlikely Power Player

‘It’s her traditional understanding of fashion and faces that allows her to advance a more broad-minded understanding of beauty.’

Learning the rules before I break them

[phillipstosch]

Thelma & Louise

Thunderbird, Hans Zimmer

[phillipstosch]

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy

‘Most revolutions begin around the table’

Uniting communities with a frying pan

The beauty of the Amalfi coast

[phillipstosch]

Jon Wood: Communicating Vessels, 2020

‘Artists have been 'taking lines for walks' for over fifty years and 'drawing in space' for nearly a hundred, but RUN II, like a number of Gormley's recent installations, is of a different order. It comprises a continuous line of square aluminium tubing that snakes into the space of the gallery and then meanders in an exploratory fashion through it, turning left and right, up and down, from the ground up, in an 'orthogonal free play'. ‘

‘RUN II is also an invitation to physically walk in and around an airy labyrinth of passages. ‘

‘His sculpture re-engaged us with metal's sculptural poetics and pragmatics in bodily form and with ideas of durability and permanence it carried. ‘

[phillipstosch]

Rebecca Comay: Bodybuilding, 2014

‘[the lack of wall text] blocks…the hypnotic tug of title, description, explanation, interpretation that can be so blinding in every museum. Who hasn't had that sinking feeling upon leaving an exhibition of having spent more time in the gallery reading than actually seeing? Antony Gormley's decision to withhold textual apparatus might forestall death by caption - the avalanche of language that can so easily smother a work by turning it into an illustration, allegory, manifesto, message from the beyond’

‘how can a thing - a hunk of inert, inanimate matter - make a claim on us, when does a mute object begin to call upon us, how does it activate our senses and feelings, why does it provoke our sociability in the way it does? What must we do to the thing to make it speak to us, and what can we do for it (this is a very different question) to allow it to do so?’

[phillipstosch]

Niccolo Machiavelli: Letter to Francesco Vettori, 1513

‘When evening has come, I return to my house and go into my study. At the door I take off my clothes of the day, covered with mud and mire, and I put on my regal and courtly garments; and decently reclothed, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them lovingly, I feed on the food that alone is mine and that I was born for. There I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their humanity reply to me. And for the space of four hours I feel no boredom, I forget every pain, I do not fear poverty, death does not frighten me. I deliver myself entirely to them.’

‘Open a book and meet an author’s creation, they breathed life into these figures that have no form but exist as sound and written word. We can interact with them. Its like meeting new people. We get to know them. We begin to uncover their heart. We begin to question why the author made them this way or that. We become their enemies or their friends. We love them, only love, love is the answer.’

[phillipstosch]

Seneca, IV, Loeb Classical Library Edition

‘The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner. Food does no good and is not assimilated into the body if it leaves the stomach as soon as it is eaten; nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent change of medicine; no wound will heal when one salve is tried after another; a plant which is often moved can never grow strong. There is nothing so efficacious that it can be helpful while it is being shifted about. And in reading of many books is distraction.’

[phillipstosch]

Arthur Schopenhauer: On Reading and Books

‘Any kind of important book should immediately be read twice, partly because one grasps the matter in its entirety the second time, and only really understands the beginning when the end is known; and partly because in reading it the second time one’s temper and mood are different, so that one gets another impression; it may be that one sees the matter in another light.’

reread sometimes, not always

[phillipstosch]

Benedict Rubra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab_jJ2I75X0

‘he lives and breathes the environment around him’

‘ideas come to you’

‘hug this marvellous view’

‘white has no time element’

‘you can achieve two completely different paintings from the same subject’

He builds models with layered paintings and glass that he then paints, there is a symbolic language shown through the materials 

‘what my father really taught me was the importance of discipline. the precision of what was going on in his mind...but not in fact to aim for perfection...its the detail, the things you don't notice, in a way have the most importance, they are superior the things you don't see, which is a sort of paradox’ 

[phillipstosch]

The Talented Mr. Ripley

‘The thing with Dickie, it’s like the sun shines on you and it’s glorious. And, he forgets you and it gets very very cold. When you have his attention you feel like you are the only person in the world. That’s why everybody loves him.’

You know what happens to those special people, they get murdered. 

[phillipstosch]

Family history has become my main inspiration as a result of its ubiquitous presence in my the conversations I have with my dad. We are always thinking about the past and trying to make sense of what happened in our family. My mum also did lots of research into her family so I have large amounts of information from both sides.

At the beginning of foundation, I decided to look at the story of the Man in the Tree who survived the attack on the village of Lissa by hiding in the woods. This story was passed down through my family by word of mouth for 300 years. The only physical record I have of it is a news pamphlet describing the destruction of the town. If my ancestor had not escaped, I would not be here today. 

To process this story, I decided to channel the feelings of fear that he might have felt into blind, automatic drawings I did of a man curled up on the seat. The final piece was a semi abstract work that became a motif I have used throughout foundation to resemble fear, or the posture I assume spiritually to find safety in a dangerous situation. During my FMP I would like to carry this motif into sculptural works, possibly using the technique I have learnt of creating structures, like my ‘Fallen Limbs’ piece, out of paper, flour and water. I had previously hoped that I would make this sculpture out of wood but the shape is too complex for me to achieve with my beginner skill set.

I began to create lots of iterations of the wood scene, first in black and white, then in colour. I used the pamphlet as the initial sorting point to create a painting that read as both calligraphy and trees, the man is hidden amongst the lines. I then chose bright healing colours like yellow, red and blue to transform the woods into a Vision of Paradise. The wood becomes a space of protection and beauty. I am trying to see the silver lining in their suffering.

[phillipstosch]

Social Reform & Family History

After the Wedding, Lowry, 1939

This painting is of significant importance to me and my mother. It represents the working class life of my great-grandmother Dorothy in Salford. Her family lived in a small back-to-back house like the ones shown in the painting. Dorothy died giving birth to my grandfather, her only child. Her family never spoke to mine again. 

Lowry lived in Pendlebury, the same area as Dorothy and her family. I am reminded of their poverty when I look at these paintings. 

Charles Booths’ poverty maps are also of interest to me as they document the truth. Instead of denying the reality, the poverty of some parts of my family, I would rather share it plainly.

https://www.britishlibrary.cn/en/articles/charles-booths-poverty-map-of-london

[phillipstosch]

Process

Investigate

Experiment

Evaluate

Refine

Communicate

[phillipstosch]

Points of Focus

Nature and History

Life and Death

Fear and Faith

Intuition and Ancestors 

The history of sound: oral traditions

The history of images

Family history: Historical Responsibility, DNA tests

Narrative: communication, language, memoirs, reportage, documentary

Relationship between artist and observer

Breath of life 

Is art alive?

Trees, walking, human anatomy, 1707

Travel

Femininity

Health

Education

Love

Cleanliness

[phillipstosch]

Exhibitions

Whistler: Woman in White, Royal Academy

Francis Bacon: Man and Beast, Royal Academy

Van Gogh: Self portraits, The Courtauld

Permanent Collection Reopening, The Courtauld

Van Gogh Immersive Experience, Regent’s Park

Frieze Masters, Regent’s Park

Orchids Festival, Kew Gardens

The EY Exhibition: The Making of Rodin, Tate Modern

Main Collection, Scottish National Gallery

Main Collection, Surgeons’ Hall Museum

Julien Cruezet: ‘Too blue, too deep, too dark we sank…’, Camberwell Art Centre

Alison Katz: Artery, Camberwell Art Centre

Joy and Tranquility, Wellcome Collection

On Hannah Arendt: The Conquest of Space, Richard Saltoun

Emilio Vedova: Documenta 7, Gallerie Thaddaeus Ropac

Oh, Marilyn!, Gazelli Art House

Proudick, Hannah Barry Gallery

Stevie Dix, Hannah Barry Gallery

Alvaro Barrington: Spider the Pig, Pig the Spider, South London Gallery

Rita Keegan : Somewhere Between There and Here, South London Gallery

Poussin: The Dance, National Gallery

William Scott, Studio Voltaire

Monster Chetwynd: Free Energy, Studio Voltaire

David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Salt’s Mill

Sam Keogh: Sated Soldier, Sated Peasant; Sated Scribe, Goldsmiths CCA

Olivia Sterling: Really Rough Scrubbing Brush, Goldsmiths CCA

Eugenio Dittborn: Airmail Paintings, Goldsmiths CCA

Wallpapers, Pitzhanger Gallery

William Blake, Tate