RAiR | 1992-93

Phillis Ideal

Born in Roswell, New Mexico abstract painter Phillis Ideal (1942) was living in New York City before she returned to her hometown on the RAiR program. She obtained her BFA in Painting from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque in 1964 and a MFA in Painting from the University of California, Berkley in 1975 where she studied painting under Elmer Bishoff. In between the two art degrees she obtained a MA in Counseling in 1967 from New York University. Phillis had her first solo exhibition in 1973 at M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco while still in art graduate school. During the twelve years she lived in San Francisco, California, she exhibited extensively and held teaching positions at the University of California and San Francisco State, amongst others. In 1982 Phillis returned to New York City. As of 2019 she had exhibited in twenty solo shows and about fifty group shows. Her work is held in public collections that include the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Oakland Museum of California and the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, New Mexico. Phillis is also known for her short stories set in New Mexico and New York. She is represented by the David Richard Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“I delight in pouring paint, separately initiating and creating forms of unchecked fluidity, then complicating this single-gesture process by collaging and pouring over these collected episodes of paint.  Here different time periods, moods and perceptions, colors and spaces are pieced together as part of the evolution of the painting and can vibrate side by side, giving way to a new reality.

My process emphasizes the ecology of the 'found,' in which miscellaneous objects are transformed and seen again. The process is self referential in the same way that a crazy quilt reflects the vignettes and life patterns of its makers.  The poured paint pieces are collected and relegated to a pile much like a collection of articles of clothing on a job lot table-many times perused, examined, and rejected.  Finally, a paint fragment as well as shreds of cartoon outlines that has been there all the time waiting for discovery strikes an intuitive cord.  It is then added to the painting and  seamlessly embedded in skeins of media.  In this way I keep my process open through reshuffling disparate collected pieces and assembling them in equally disjunctive sequences.  Each painting carries with it the potential of evolving into an alternate painting. 

Though the paintings draw on formal relationships, the color references the contemporary absurdity of the real world, from Ralph Lauren house paint chips to home shopping items and the hard-hitting meltdown of computer graphics.  Humor plays a role through the choice of color and the play of shapes against one another aided by irony and non sequitur choices.”

Phillis Ideal’s website

Roswell Museum and Art Center

invitational exhibition • phillis ideal • 1986