James Phillips: “The Shape of Things to Come”

Since the mid-1960’s, James Phillips has perpetually evolved as a painter of light, sound and rhythm. Renowned for his bold contrast and intense hue, the artist articulates through complex and highly stylized expression a narrative of African tradition and visual code. His two-dimensional works are vibrant and dynamic; and like densely patterned quilts, they weave together the old and the new.

His paintings are informed by the social/ spiritual bearing, and tenacious imprint of the African Diaspora; as well as contemporary politics. Iconography of traditional mythologies is consistently evidenced in his abstracted works. His paintings are also informed by the visual artist collective AfriCobra*, and by the music of Jazz musicians.

The title of the exhibition, “The Shape of Things to Come”, is borrowed from the 1959 recording by avant-garde Jazz giant, Ornette Coleman. The music of Jazz innovators such as Coleman, John Coltrane, and Jackie McLean (to name a few) has been important and inspirational to Phillips’s creative discovery and exploration. Like Jazz, Phillips’s works present the exciting complication of resonance/dissonance; resolved by the decoding of concept, motif, and symbol into form and meaning.

With these new works, Phillips literally enters a curve; turning the corner to a departure from his trademark style of densely patterned surface, contained within the typical portrait or landscape frame. He instead finds freedom with more fluid shapes, and the allowance of air and negative space. Phillips explains also, ‘the new works are more rooted in personal experience, and discovering Africanisms I grew up with, but could not identify’. The work introduces a variety of shapes that are inspired by traditional weaponry; specifically, swords, and knives. The artist interprets these as “power objects”, relevant to socially present issues of power and identity.

Renowned also as a public artist-muralist, Phillips has created site-specific murals for more than 30 years. His public art murals are located in Baltimore, Maryland, Washington, D.C., New York City and San Francisco, California.

The work of James Phillips has been exhibited and collected internationally, with inclusion in prestigious collections such as Hampton University Museum Collection, The David C. Driskell Center Collection, and The Art in Embassies Program of the United Sates Department of State Collection.

*AFRICOBRA began very loosely in 1968 as an association of visual artists committed to the collective exploration, development, and perpetuation of an approach to image making which would reflect and project the moods, attitudes, and sensibilities of African Americans independent of the technical and aesthetic strictures of Euro-centric modalities.