The Artists

Gregor Phillips M.A. Honors

Born and educated locally, Greg is at present working through a B.A. Hons. in painting from the Open College for the Arts.   Before exhibiting with SABAB he had had a successful solo exhibition in Aberdeen and joint exhibitions in Stonehaven and Cults.   An English and Media Studies teacher for many years he is now focussing on painting.

“I’m now trying more to capture the ‘feel’ of the subjects, as well as the physical appearance”.   Using oil, watercolour, acrylic and mixed media, colour is becoming more important in his style.   “Tone conveys most of the information we need to capture appearance.   Think how effective charcoal sketches, black and white photographs, or tonal paintings can be.   But colour seems to speak directly to the heart.   I’m now learning how to manipulate this.”

“I‘m also fascinated with figure painting and portraits.   They are probably the most demanding subjects, partly for physical reasons: in a landscape a tree might be out of place, or you can move a house, and it can even look better, but our brains recognise where exactly eyelashes, wrinkles, even muscles and bones, should be.   An eye two millimetres out looks wrong.   And there’s something very personal and involving in representations of people, especially when they have been filtered through someone else’s consciousness first.”