About Phillip
I was born in Oxfordshire and brought up in a village near Reading. I went to the Berkshire College of Art in Maidenhead and then to Chelsea School of Art.
I now work primarily in watercolour and pen-and-ink, although oil painting still gives me a great deal of pleasure. I explore printmaking techniques such as etching, block printing, and stone lithography in my small studio workshop. My fascination with the natural world began in childhood, sparked by the gift of a microscope and the challenge to “draw to keep” the fleeting life of a water flea.
After studying fine art at Chelsea I trained as an art teacher at Sussex University’s department of art education in Brighton. I balanced careers in teaching, painting and illustration: drawing insects for Usborne Publishing and designing pottery for Moorcroft were particular joys. Teaching art and art history, especially during my long tenure at Friends School, Saffron Walden, kept me connected to evolving artistic ideas while giving me time for my own practice.
Our three children now have homes of their own and I live with my wife, Kate, in a rural hamlet near the Icknield Way. My work increasingly reflects a deepening engagement with landscape, natural history, and our relationship to both. I continue to investigate the tension between fragility and resilience in nature, man’s influence on it, and the inevitability of dying, decaying and regeneration.
My recent exhibitions include a solo show at the Lapworth Museum (2022), participation in the Kilkenny Arts Festival (2024) and The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (2025).