Kevin Phillips

My name is Kevin Phillips, I'm currently 18 years old planning on going to college for an art degree. All my life I knew I was pretty good at art, took art classes all through school etc. But it wasn't till the summer before my senior year I actually wanted to do art for a living. I never really learned any art techniques or rules in any of those classes, so I'm self taught for all of my graphite pieces. When it comes to painting, I owe a big thanks to my senior year art teacher Mrs. McDougal. I do not consider myself a specific kind of artist, considering I've worked with metal sculpture, graphite drawings in realism to abstract, and painting that ranges from realism to abstract. I consider myself to be pretty well rounded in all areas of art, at least for my age and where I'm currently at.

A few artists that I look up to are Erik Johnson and Ryan Shultz, both were on the show "work of art" and are very talented. Tim Gagnon and Lawrence Yang, are two that I model my work after a bunch. And last but not least Banksy, Banksy is probably the most known of the 5 because of the way he keeps in secret and the meaning behind his works.

This is a portrait that I did of my friend Caylee, I think what helps this drawing strong is the contrast in lighting, and her good looks help as well.

In all of my portraits, I attempt to set a mood, or feeling. In this one you look up at the girl (Hail) as she looks up and away giving a lift me up feeling somewhat.




This piece was inspired by an artist I look up to a bunch because of his style, He mixes a Asian influence with a American style in a way I really like. Lawrence Yang is a very well known artist and I have plenty of pieces in the style of Lawrence.

"Inside a collapsing sun" In my opinion this is one of my most successful abstract pieces, I used a few techniques from Lawrence Yang, but really put my own flair into it by using 4 different canvases to make one piece that flows from canvas to canvas.

Tim Gagnon is another artist I look up to. He has a very modern approach of painting and I really wanted to do a piece like his, but in my own style.

My self portrait was done in order to show the contours of my face and to show my youth to be combined with a later piece that makes me look older.

To be combined with the previous picture into one piece, this future self portrait was meant to hopefully show the difference of what I look like adding around, 50-60 years to my age. This was one of my more challenging pieces because it's not the easiest thing to look into the future at yourself.


To see more of my work you can to go either of the facebook pages here and here, I hope you enjoy my artwork, and hope you follow me to see my progression through the future.


* This post was written by the Guest Columnist Kevin Phillips