06/11/2025
Dreaming Before The Ravenous Tide — Recently unearthed from the archive is this essay about my art from almost a decade ago, by my good friend Keith Hackwood.
There are many layers to Keith's splendid writing, weaving around the art historical, psychological, ecological, and spiritual influences that my work draws upon. I continue to circle the same themes today, and reading this again recently felt refreshing, and deeply relevant.
You can read the full piece by clicking the link below to the blog post on my website.
"I first met Andrew during his time as a student in Wales. One of my clearest memories of that period involves the black-and-white video made during the final year of his studies there, which involved him being bodily hauled across coal tips and slag heaps – the aptly named Slag Drag. Although distinct in form from the work we’re considering here, the sheer physicality of the piece, reminiscent of the Tibetan practice of kora (a pilgrimage journey made through circumambulation of a sacred peak or other object, performed entirely through prostrations) struck me as evidence of a deeply realised will in service and commitment to an artistic vision, as yet emergent, but nonetheless compelling and potent...."
Different landscapes in our sense of the world also speak to us differently, and here it serves us to consider the aspect of ‘North’ in Phillips’s work. Made on and of the chalklands of England’s South Downs, then nurtured and moulded in art school in South Wales (where his dissertation for ...
