Kerry Phillips
Bio
Kerry Phillips is an installation artist whose artwork borders on performance and social practice. Phillips’ work with found objects is intuitive, often site-specific, and steeped in remembrance and storytelling. She uses common objects in unexpected ways, working collaboratively with viewer-participants to reveal an exchange of value, the importance and limitations of memory, and the vitality of play.
Phillips earned a BFA from Florida International University (2000), an MFA from University of Arizona (2003), and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the Orlando Museum of Art, Locust Projects, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Boca Raton Museum of Art, the Deering Estate’s Spring Contemporary, and Bridge Red Projects. In August 2023, Phillip’s had her first solo exhibition with The Bass Museum in Miami Beach titled ‘Between the miraculous & the mundane.’
Statement
My parents grew up on farms. One grandmother ‘collected’ things and the other was a Grand Storyteller. Both influenced me greatly. I create sculptures and installations using materials available in a given place at a given time – ranging from things found to collected experiences and retold stories. Often, I’ll alter a space using architectural interventions and enlist the public’s participation in the gathering of materials or through performative interactions.
I have drastically limited my bounty of resources, forcing myself to rely heavily on insight, and know-how, yet I remain fascinated by collections – even if a bit wary. I abstain from collections by channeling this tendency to projects like, 'Sometimes your things…' and 'My parents’ junk drawer…' They reveal my attraction to meaningless objects that I am, nonetheless, charmed by and have fond memories of.
