Phillip Shiels

Phillip Shiels (b.1965 Dublin) studied painting at IADT and the Jutland Academy of Art and holds a BA and MA in The History of Ideas & Aesthetics from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. He has lived and practised in Denmark since 1983 and recently relocated to Ireland. He has participated in group exhibitions at the Kunsthal Charlottenburg, Den Fri Centre For Contemporary Art, Copenhagen and the Aarhus Centre for Contemporary Art. His works are represented in public and private collections in Denmark, including the Danish Office of Public Works, The Aarhus City Council Civic Collection, The Svendborg Museum of Art, Dansk Bank and Nykredit, Denmark.

Phillip Shiels practice throughout the last 20 years has incorporated work in painting, printing, photography and film. He is interested in moments of awkwardness or uncertainty in painting. The fragility of abstract and figurative forms underline the precarious nature of narrative. The doing and undoing of the constructed space of a canvas in the physical process of painting, is of greater importance than personal expectations of coherence in pictorial representation. Referencing physical, literary and imagined landscapes, his ongoing interest in history and philosophy is echoed in fragments and traces, whilst undoing or trying to get away from a literal concept. Gestural interventions and consciously placed visual obstacles allow for emotional and poetic explorations of thought, gesture and materiality.