Benedict Phillips is an established artist, mentor and consultant. His practice is eclectic, encompassing a broad range of methodologies, generating work as diverse as public art, performance, photography, and media art. He is particularly concerned with the on-going interrelationship and shifting hierarchy between photography, sculpture and performance within his practice, and the aesthetics of each approach. Exploiting historical production processes as well as more recent digitally driven approaches informs the making of much of his work. Dependent upon the geography of the project, Benedict’s responses have been floated, buried, placed, flown and exhibited.
Benedict has worked with curators and galleries in the UK, Europe and the US. His photography, artist books and limited editions have been collected and displayed in collections including the Victoria and Albert, London where he was included in the exhibition Field Study International: Emanations of a Collective Spirit in Art (V&A, 2011).
A continuing interest of Phillips’ has been Dyslexia, focusing upon his and others experience of this ‘specific learning difficulty’ (www.nhs.uk). This has included the performance of Agender of the Aggressive Dislecksick (Speakers Corner, London, 1995) through to The White DIV (dyslexic intelligent vision) performance and My Misspelt Youth project (Yorkshire Art Space, 2005); Invisible Conversations (UK and USA, 2005 – 2009); The Red DIV (Cheltenham, 2011); The DIV: 3D thinkers in a 2D World (ISEA, 2009) and A Benedictionary the world’s first and only Lecksick to Dislecksick translation dictionary (www.popublishing.co.uk).
Phillips is currently working on How to be a Dyslexic Artist, a two-year research and professional development project, reflecting upon and re-imagining 25 years of artistic practice with mentoring from Mark Segal (the artists agency), and Nick Galvin and research partner, Jonathan Lindh LEDA Architects (Leeds). He’s consolidating and archiving a database of works, developing a new website and undertaking residencies while developing new sculpture and photographic works for exhibition. A new publication is planned along with a series of public events. Partners include Access Space (Sheffield), Royal Conservatoire Scotland (Glasgow), Gallery Oldham, and Arts Catalyst (London).
Alongside his fine art practice Benedict also has considerable experience as a lead artist, working in NHS and local authority settings, and as a mentor and creative consultant working with architects, archaeologists, and public agencies. He is also creative director of Digital Media Labs.