Pat Phillips’s approach to drawing and working on paper is foregrounded in his solo exhibition, Untitled: Dad Drew All of My Book Report Posters. Paper was an early site for Phillips to explore the relationship between forms and materials. Having written graffiti in his youth, Phillips would regularly use paper to develop letter structures and test colour combinations using the Rust-Oleum product line before applying them permanently to the train cars that would transit the reaches of North America.

With paper remaining as an honest and vulnerable space for Phillips to explore, his experimentation of material and mark-making can be seen in the works on view. His works demonstrate his thinking in graphite, ink, paint and collage, with constant consideration of how the presence of one material may build upon the presence of another. His works offer glimpses into an ongoing contemplation rather than definitive conclusions. Working on paper allows ideas to take shape, be set aside, and return with new clarity as time creates distance from their initial impressions. In this way, the works remain somewhere between the beginning and the end of an idea. They neither resolve the tensions they address nor simply illustrate them but hold them open for further consideration.

The exhibition is open to the public with free admission at Anthony Gallery’s new Chicago location, 456 N Union Avenue.

Pat Phillips (b. 1987, Lakenheath, England) combines personal and historical imagery into surreal juxtapositions, drawing on his experience living in America to meditate on complex questions of race, class, labour and a militarised culture. Growing up in small-town Louisiana, Phillips found his way to art by painting and photographing boxcars. His works synthesise his roots in graffiti culture with pop iconography and historically charged subject matter, often containing references to confederate flags, fences, and guns — objects that suggest the violent underpinnings of this country and its institutions.

He has participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, and the Joan Mitchell Center. His first publication, Pat Phillips: Quality Control, was released in June 2023. His work can be found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo.