Phil King. Artist.

"Rather than a coherent linear progression I find my work in relation, bringing

together pieces made in different places and circumstances and presenting them
as a body. I exploit the synthetic nature of classic modern art to frame my
experience, to create it to some extent, relishing the power of its absolute artistic
nature, and yet then putting it to up 'for grabs' relational life."


Born in Bristol England in 1965 Phil King at the age of three went to live in Toulouse
France as his father was an aircraft engineer on the multinational Concorde project. His
mother was a Welsh painter who had some recognition in Wales in the 1950s.

Returning to Bristol in 1973 he went to Filton High School where his talent was put to
use designing and painting theatre sets.
In 1987 receiving his bachelor of Fine Art (hons) in Painting at Bath Academy of Art.
where studied with the painter Peter Kinley and alongside the artist Glenn Brown.
He began to write poetry and art appreciation in conjunction with his painting, developing
an interest in the problem of artistic voice and the framing of identity. An attempt to
integrate the cultural differences between industrial England and Southern France is
maybe a factor in his ongoing compulsion for disruptive synthesis.

Moving to London at an intense time for the arts in the capital he worked for many years
in the Tate Gallery publications department enjoying continual access to the collections
and the visiting exhibitions.

He completed his M.A in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College in London in 1993. In the same
year he presented cut out modern sculptures in the Economist Plaza London as a
cheap form of public art.

Responsible for writing press release texts and catalogue essays at the request of
many of his colleagues, including Glenn Brown, Rebecca Warren and Fergal Stapleton,
he also organised and helped organise a number of independent art shows and spaces,
including Somethings Wrong with the artist Bob and Roberta Smith in 1995.

His painting and drawing developed out his passion for art history and the continual
now-ness of art. This became manifest in his interest in collections and his work
became organised to reflect its being a body of work that acts organically out of time.
Works from different periods act together when dealt in the form of Triptych groupings;
indicating partial narratives, open to possible readings and yet maintaining their own
nature and unique pictorial drama. The rigidity of artistic identity is put in question as a
given. As this project has developed it has meant that he has found the freedom to paint
spontaneously in a range of styles and approaches and yet keep a suprising but
recognisable je ne sais quoi.

Travelling between England, France and the USA in a wide range of employments and
occupations that feed into his artwork and thinking, King lived in California for four years,
exhibiting regularly and finding a synthesis between the Latin and Anglo Saxon there.
His backlog of imagined art projects gave him the ability to prepare a large installation
for the Oakland Summer Film Festival at short notice, an installation of large wooden
frames that articulated a minimalist comedy and the possibilities of disappointment. He
also installed a pair of cardboard spectacles in a memorial casket at the Oakland
Chapel of the Chimes. Using his industrial laser cutting experience he presented a
larger group of laser cut objects at Kala Arts in Berkeley in 2013.

He is currently developing a collection of essays on Modern Art and has recently
completed a new translation of Genet's L'Atelier d'Alberto Giacometti illustrated with
new works by Marc Camille Chaimowiczt being published by Grey Tiger Books. London
2014.

Currently based in the Suffolk Countryside, an area unfamiliar to him and yet fortuitously
a heartland of British Landscape painting, he is currently painting paintings inspired by
watching the world cup and his hopeless attempts at learning Chinese. Once an overly
active member of the writer, artist and broadcaster, Matthew Collings Facebook Art
School, his writing has flourished and he has currently an essay on Paul Klee being
edited for Turps Banana art magazine in London.

A great believer in Art as shared engagement and opportunity for discussion he has
collaborated with a number of artists, and is working with the French/Welsh artist Pascal
Michel Dubois on a show of Collections to be exhibited in Cardiff. There is also a
collaboration underway on a show with the Californian painter Christina McPhee in
California called Radiant Edge and an ongoing project with the Art Historian Joni
Spigler on the nature of collecting.