Ransomart

Biography

John Ransom Phillips (b. 1949 - ) An American artist who lives and works in Montclair, New Jersey and Old Chatham, New York. His work has been exhibited at galleries in many major art centers around the world: New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Paris, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, São Paulo and Cairo. His paintings and watercolors are in renowned public and corporate collections including Bank of America, Toyota, PLM Corporation, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Phillips Collection in Washington DC , the Albany Institute of History and Art, and the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago.

Phillips’ approach to painting is not easily categorized, which he prefers, having always sought to create his own path. Occupying both figurative and abstract dimensions, Phillips’ work draws the viewer close, with vivid colors and complex spaces, and then slowly reveals many meanings.

“What is real to me,” says Phillips, “is what is concrete and immediate. My consciousness reveals images and patterns of behavior; my memories and dreams provide me with maps of my unconsciousness. They reveal that I have lived many times before this life, and will do so again. What I assume, you shall assume’ becomes the ground for going forth.” If studied chronologically, Phillips’ work reveals the various stages in discovering oneself by way of ‘ransoming’ an old identity, as he puts it, to move on to a new one.

Jonathan Goodman, contributing editor at ArtCritical Magazine has said: ‘[Phillips’] sense of appropriation is powerfully imaginative— the artist aims to reenact the existence of someone from another life—much as Cindy Sherman does in her famous film stills…The relationship between author and mediator is deliberately complex, so that it is hard to say whether it is Phillips himself or his assumed persona that is the subject of the works before us.”

Education

BA and PHD History of Culture, University of Chicago

BFA and MFA, San Francisco Art Institute

Solo Exhibitions

2010 Ransoming Mathew Brady: Re-imagining the Civil War. Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany (NY) 2010 Ransoming Mathew Brady: Searching for Celebrity. Opalka Gallery, Albany (NY) 2008 Bed as Autobiography. Gallery 37, Williamstown (MA) 2006 Bed as Autobiography. Devos Art Museum, Marquette (MI) 2006 My Father is His Buick. Anderson Center for the Arts, Anderson (IN) 2006 Famous People’s Body Parts. 4 Star Gallery, Indianapolis (IN) 2006 Egypt: Past Lives and Appropriations. Heidi Cho Gallery, New York (NY) 2005 Book of the Dead: Watercolors on Papyrus. Zamalek Gallery, Cairo (Egypt) 2004 Galabiya: Watercolors on Papyrus. Zamalek Gallery, Cairo (Egypt) 2003 Landscapes and Gardens. Gallery Splendore, Otsu Shiga (Japan) 1998 The Body is a Clear Place. Jacob’s Pillow, Becket (MA) 1997 Walsh Gallery, Chicago (IL) 1995 Paulina Rieloff Gallery, New York (NY) 1994 A Personal Odyssey: Lost Parts of the Soul. Paulina Rieloff Gallery, New York (NY) 1994 A Contemporary Odyssey. David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art 1994 Landscapes and Gardens. Gallery Splendore, Otsu Shiga (Japan) 1993 States of Mind. Franz Bader Gallery, Washington DC (VA) 1993 Lucy in the Barn, “The Creative Process: A Tribute to Composer Lucia Dlugoszewski. Paulina Rieloff Gallery, New York (NY) 1992 Brazilian Rainforest. Fundart Fundação de Arte e Cultura de Ubatuba, Sao Paulo (Brazil) 1992 Praxis Gallery, New York (NY) 1992 Famous Peoples’ Body Parts. Nippon Gallery, Tokyo (Japan) 1991 Toyota Corporate Gallery, Tokyo (Japan) 1991 Praxis Gallery, Mexico City (Mexico) 1991 Dance: Space in Time. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC 1990 Praxis Gallery, New York (NY) 1990 Alexio Trabulsi Gallery, Los Angeles (CA) 1990 Body Parts. Susan Conway Carroll Gallery, Los Angeles (CA) 1988 Bergmann Gallery, Chicago (IL) 1987 Terne Gallery, New York (NY) 1984 This Century Art Gallery, Williamsburg (VA) 1984 Galérie René Drouet, Paris (France) 1983 Paintings from Video. Marymount Manhattan College, New York (NY) 1982 The New School Associates Gallery, New York (NY)

Group Exhibitions

2016 New work. George Berges, New York (NY). 2015 New work, Galarie Espen, Cannes (France). 2014 Artists & Philanthropy. W Hotel, New York (NY). New work. Rush Arts Gallery, Brooklyn (NY). 2006 Earth. Spike Gallery, New York (NY). 2000 Hillary Clinton Exhibit. Gagosian Gallery, New York (NY). 1993 The Japanese Garden. Spaightwood Gallery, Madison (IL). 1990 Contemporary American Painters. Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires (Argentina). 1989 Contemporary American Painters. Cultural Center of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires (Argentina).