For the entire month of November, paintings by Katie Phillips are lining The Bull’s ever-changing walls.
The Bull is not your traditional gallery setting. A self-described bar/coffee shop, you can view Phillip’s exhibit over live music, drinking a pint or a pour-over.
I did just that, traveling from one hyper-colorful acrylic creation to the next. These paintings, some of women and some of nature, transform the otherwise white walls and compliment the bar’s eclectic details.
Her paintings are not gigantic floor-to-ceiling creations, but they still demand a presence. Your eyes can’t help but wander to them even once you’re seated. You look at them the way you would look around while chit-chatting in your friend’s loft, the one with the enviable decorating skills.
African Headdress, by Katie Phillips. 2015.
Phillips dabbled in various art mediums growing up, but she didn’t start painting (or literally dabbling among other blending techniques) until much later.
“I found a canvas lying around my house and decided to try it out. It was my first painting and I gave it to my grandpa for Christmas,” Phillips said.
Since that painting, which still hangs in her grandfather’s house, she’s produced a wide collection in a short amount of time. This includes personal projects as well as commissioned pieces.
While she has a recognizable style across her body of work, she is a chameleon of subject matter. Paintings of two women wearing African headdresses on one wall stare at a painting of a palm tree across from them. Cara Delevingne in the Bathtub hangs at the end of the bar, and her eyes seem to follow me no matter where I’m standing.
It’s interesting to see an artist put less emphasis on themes and more on exploration.
“I think it’s also part of the fun, many artists have a theme they carry throughout all their work and I’m still experimenting to find it,” Phillips said.
Perhaps the closest thing to a theme in her work is the female body.
“I think I enjoy painting female figures so much because I find something so graceful and attractive about the way the female figure moves and presents itself, especially when painted.”
For someone who paints so many different things, I asked her about the subconscious and its role in her work.
“Sometimes I paint to tell a story and sometimes I’ll paint just as a release to channel my thoughts into a different outlet. Either way, the subconscious behind the making of the painting plays a major role in the outcome. Even for commissioned work – even though you are being told what to paint and how they want it to look, you are still taking a vision and turning into a physical depiction.”
Phillips writes in her artist statement, “In every piece I create, my goal is to make an impression.”
I admire the confidence in her paintings, especially for this being her first solo show. I left the exhibit wanting to paint something of my own, preferably swaddled in a blanket on my dream home’s balcony à la Rachel McAdam’s character in “The Notebook.”
If you need one more reason to visit The Bull, make sure to stop by this month so you can check out Katie Phillip’s collection. The opening for her show is November 16th from 7-9 PM, where there will be drink specials and live music by Matt Phillips.
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