Paulette Phillips is a Canadian artist based in Toronto. She was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her conceptually oriented

Conceptual art

Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...

 art practice combines film and video installation, sculpture, photography and performance. Phillips is a Professor at Ontario College of Art & Design University where she has taught studio practice in film, installation and performance since 1986. A graduate of York University (2008) and the Canadian Film Centre (1992), Phillips became a Certified Polygraph Examiner after completing a course at the Maryland Institute for Criminal Justice (2009). Phillips is represented by Diaz Contemporary (Toronto) and Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art (London).

Art Practice

Focussed on witnessing, looking and reflection, Phillips' work deals with the relationship between (female) subject and viewer. Consistent throughout her work is an interest in the way psychological content is embedded in the physical world, a tendency Phillips strives to make visible via the depiction of contradictions. The artist has stated “I am interested in paradox and conflict, unease, humour and contradiction.” An explicit aim of Phillip’s work is to in some way destabilize the viewer. In his essay, The Secret Life of Criminals, Gordon Hatt writes: “Phillips invites us into scenarios…that penetrate our contentment and direct us to recall the source of our own compulsive narratives and…anxieties.” In the videowork, It’s About How People Judge Appearance(2000) a well-dressed women violently bangs her head against a brick wall, walks away and then does it again. The video projection The Floating House (2002) in the collection of The National Gallery of Canada features a half-scale Gothic revival house sinking in deep water off the coast of Nova Scotia. The film projection Crosstalk (2004), which was exhibited at The Power Plant, Toronto in 2006 and is in the collection of Frac Normandie on-lookers encircle and stare at the gallery viewer positioned in place of an implied off-screen traumatic event.As part of an extensive art work begun in 2009 Phillips has been conducting lie testing with the denizens or the art world in London, Paris, Dublin, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto and Banff. Using her training as a certified polygraph examiner Phillips’ polygraph’s responses to a series of question about honesty, probing the limits of portraiture’s territory to trap, capture, probe, witness and archive.

In a number of works, Phillips investigates the cultural significance of architectural monuments. Commissioned for Toronto's Nuit Blanche As Could Be (2009) projects onto smoke a 3D video animation of Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International

Tatlin's Tower

Tatlin’s Tower or The Monument to the Third International is a grand monumental building envisioned by the Russian artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin, but never built. It was planned to be erected in Petrograd Tatlin’s Tower or The Monument to the Third International is a grand monumental...

 accompanied by a soundtrack made of diverse people talking about work and it’s meaning today. In Touché (2008), Phillips traps two magnetized books in an ‘embrace’ in a metal cage. “One book hovers over the other repelled by its negative energy field.” The books are Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier

Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...

’s The Poetics of Metaphor and Caroline Constance’s Eileen Gray

Eileen Gray

Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray was an Irish furniture designer and architect and a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture.- Biography :...

. In this way, Phillips dramatizes discord in the designer and the architect’s relationship. Shell (2008) a half-hour film about the derelict house E.1027

Eileen Gray

Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray was an Irish furniture designer and architect and a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture.- Biography :...

 built by Gray in 1927 in Cap Martin, France, suggests “an association between domestic architecture and the uncanny.”

Phillips was commissioned by Fashion Week London to make Marnie’s Handbag (2008), a 10 minute video about film noir fashion that premiered at the Tate Modern. In 2008, the Tatton Park Biennale commissioned Phillips to make an installation titled The Walking Ferns, which consisted of a herd of robotic ferns walking in the Victorian Rose Garden. In 2003, the Images Festival awarded Phillips the Marian McMahon Award for her curatorial project Do The Wrong Thing, featuring the work of Eija-Liisa Ahtila

Eija-Liisa Ahtila

Eija-Liisa Ahtila is a video artist and photographer. She lives and works in Helsinki.In 1998 Eija-Liisa Ahtila participated in the second edition of Manifesta. She was the winner of the inaugural Vincent Award in 2000. In 2002 she had a solo show at Tate Modern, and in 2006 her multi-screen video...

, Miranda July

Miranda July

Miranda July is a performing artist, writer, actress and film director. Born Miranda Jennifer Grossinger, she works under the surname of "July," which can be traced to a character from a "girlzine" Miranda created with high school friend Johanna Fateman, called Snarla.- Background :Miranda...

, Aida Ruilova and Rita Myers among others.

Since 2009, Phillips has been conducting lie detecting tests with art world members in London, Paris, Dublin, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto and Banff. Using her training as a certified polygraph examiner Phillips’ poses a series of questions to her subjects about honesty. The resulting polygraph responses create an alternative form of portraiture.

Early History

As an artist working in film, video and performance in the 1980s, Phillips and Geoffrey Shea directed the video Work (1989), which features a soundtrack by Fifth Column and American writer Paul Bowles

Paul Bowles

Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...

. In 1984, Phillips founded United Media Arts Studies with Geoffrey Shea, Christian Morrison, Ed Lam and Dimitrije Martinovic. UMAS published the first video essay VHS magazine called Diderot. The film Lockjaw (1992), a deconstruction of psychoanalytic theory, is available in university libraries across Canada. In the 1990’s Phillips worked in theatre writing and directing the experimental performance installations Under the Influence at the Factory Theatre Lab

Factory Theatre

Factory Theatre is a theatre in Toronto, Ontario, founded as Factory Theatre Lab in 1970 by Ken Gass and Frank Trotz.Factory was the first theatre to announce that it would exclusively produce Canadian plays, but it soon became a widely emulated policy by other theatre companies...

 (1992) and Controlling Interest (1995) at the Theatre Passe Muraille

Theatre Passe Muraille

Theatre Passe Muraille is a theatre company in Toronto, Canada.-Brief history:One of Canada's most influential alternative theatres, Theatre Passe Muraille was founded in 1968 by director and playwright Jim Garrard, who started the company out of Rochdale College.Its radical intention was create a...

. Phillips shared a Dora Mavor Moore Award

Dora Mavor Moore Award

The Dora Mavor Moore Award is an award presented annually by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts which honours theatre, dance, and opera productions in Toronto. Named after Dora Mavor Moore, who helped establish Canadian professional theatre, the award was established on December 13, 1978...

 for Best Female Performance with Tracy Wright

Tracy Wright

Tracy Wright was a Canadian actress who was known for her stage and film performances, as well as her presence in Canada's avant-garde for over 20 years...

, Nadia Ross, Ali Riley, Valerie Buhghair

Valerie Buhagiar

Valerie Buhagiar is a Maltese born Canadian actress, film director and television host.She studied acting at George Brown College in Toronto, Ontario, graduating in 1986...

, Caroline Gillis, and Maria Vacratsis for their work in the Lorca Play, directed by Daniel MacIvor

Daniel MacIvor

Daniel MacIvor is a Canadian actor, playwright, theatre director and film director. He was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia and educated at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and then at George Brown College in Toronto, Ontario....

 and Daniel Brooks

Daniel Brooks

Daniel Brooks is a Canadian theatre director, actor and playwright. He was born in Toronto, Ontario.A highly regarded theatre maker in Toronto's "alternative" theatre scene, Daniel Brooks has a reputation for creating and directing cutting edge productions which combine fiercely intellectual...

for the Festival of the Americas.

Selected Publications

• Les Lendermains d’hier, Lesley Johnstone, Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal(2010) ISBN: 978-2-551-23939-9

• Practical Dreamers, Conversations with Movie Artists (2007) ISBN: 13 978 1 55245 200 4
• Explorations Narratives (2007) ISBN: 978-2-9808020-1-0

• Catalogue de l’exposition Lisa Klapstock Paulette Phillips (2007) ISBN: 978-1-896940-44-1

• Repatriating the Ark (2006) ISBN:0-9547617-5-8

• Rezonancia-Resonance Electromagnetic Bodies (2005) ISBN: 88-7336-179-X

• Caught in the Act: An anthology of performance art (2004) ISBN: 978-0920397848

• Paulette Phillips, The Secret Life of Criminals: Clues and Curiosities (2004) ISBN: 0-9547617-0-7

Selected Exhibitions

• Tout Contre Nature, Wharf, Centre d'art contemporain de Basse-Normandie (2011)

• Paulette Phillips : History appears twice… National College of Art and Design, Dublin (2010)

• Where are Yesterday’s Tomorrows? Musee D’Art Contemporain (2010)

• Marnie’s Handbag, Tate Modern (2010)

• The Walking Ferns, Tatton Park Biennale, Cheshire, England (2008)

• Paulette Phillips: Crosstalk, KinoArsenal, Berlin, Germany (2007)

• Repatriating the Ark, Museum of Garden History, London (2006)

• Electromagnetic Bodies, ZKM, Karlsrhue, Germany, 2005

• Paulette Phillips: The Secret Life of Criminals, Danielle Arnaud (2004)

Selected Public Collections

• The Museum of Modern Art, New York

• The National Gallery, Ottawa

• Frac, Haute-Normandie, Caen, France

• The Kitchen, New York

• Universidad Complutense, Facultad De Bellas Artes, Madrid

• Concordia University, Montreal

• NSCAD, Halifax, University of Regina

• McGill University

• Private Collections

External links

• www.paulette-phillips.ca http://paulette-phillips.ca

• Diaz Contemporary http://diazcontemporary.ca

• Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art http://www.daniellearnaud.com

• OCAD http://apache.ocad.ca/faculty_biographies/bio.php?bid=1231&fac=art