Wittgenstein's Cage, 90 x 90 x 90cm, 2009

Throughout his career, Tom Phillips has woven together many diverse modes of practice, including painting, sculpture, text, music, photography, video, design, and site-specific sculptural installations. A new exhibition at Flowers Gallery gathers together a selection of works produced across five decades with particular focus on works in three dimensions, tracing the themes, systems and processes that have often corresponded and converged within Phillips’ durational projects. The exhibition marks Tom Phillips 80th birthday and celebrates his long association with Flowers Gallery where he first showed in 1970. A handsome catalogue, with an introductory text by Bill Packer accompanies the exhibition.

You are warmly invited to come and meet the artist at the Private View on Thursday 25th May 6pm - 8pm

Tom Phillips: Connected Works
26th May - 1st July 2017
Flowers Gallery
82 Kingsland Road London E2 8DP
T: +44 (0)20 7920 7777 F: +44 (0)20 7920 7770
info@flowersgallery.com www.flowersgallery.com

Irma, digital print with silkscreen 2017

To celebrate the year of my eightieth birthday (in May) I am looking forward to two events. Firstly a show at Flowers Gallery called Connected Works which has its opening on the evening of 25th May (6-8pm).

My opera Irma will have the world premiere with two performances directed by Netia Jones at the South London Gallery on September 16th and 17th. This will be the first stageing of the complete version whose score and text I finished last year. I might even be given a small role in it myself…

Meanwhile I am busy reading over a hundred novels as one of the judges of this year’s Man Booker Prize.

Sounds enough to be going on with.

On Monday 14th November, from 4.30 - 7pm, The Bodleian is celebrating the final, fully revised, 50th anniversary edition of A Humument with a book launch event at the lecture theatre of the Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford. The speakers are Dr Gill Partington (University of Warwick) & Dr Julia Jordan (UCL); followed by dialogue between Professor Adam Smyth (English Faculty) and Tom Phillips. The evening finishes with a book signing and drinks reception.  

The event is free but places are limited. Visit the Bodliean Libraries web page for more details and to reserve tickets.

Colour and Light which opens at Dovecot Gallery on 5th November, is a new exhibition exploring the relationship between colour and light in Dovecot projects. From projection to pigment, there are a myriad of different ways that the weaver can use the subtle effects of light on colour to bring textile to life. The importance of light in successful colour blending is a vital element in the production of all the textile art produced at Dovecot Tapestry Studio.

This display of textile works, film and objects provides an opportunity to take a closer look at the materials and processes involved in creating tapestries and rugs at Dovecot Tapestry Studio with an emphasis on colour and light. A coinciding programme of accessible events including talks, handling sessions and workshops are available to those who wish to deepen their understanding. Collaborations with artists including Tom Philips, Garry Fabian Miller, David Poston, Chrissie Clyne and Eduardo Paolozzi are represented in this exhibition.

The exhibition is open: Mon-Sat 10.30am-5.30pm until 25th February 2017
Dovecot Gallery
10 Infirmary Street
Edinburgh
EH1 1LT

It is fifty years since Tom Phillips began work on A Humument. The very last page, no.367 has just been added to the Humument Slideshow section of this site, and today the final version of A Humument is published by Thames & Hudson in hardback, soft back and a signed and numbered special limited edition.

To mark the occasion Flowers Gallery will be hosting a book launch at 21 Cork Street, London W1S 3LZ on Tuesday 15th November from 6-8pm. You are warmly invited to come and join the celebrations, Tom Phillips will be signing copies of the book and the special edition will also be available on the night. If you would like to attend please RSVP here.

To accompany this publication, an audio recording of Tom Phillips reading the complete final edition is available free on Soundcloud.

 Special signed and numbered limited edition in clamshell box with drop-in print

Photo: Mazur/Catholicnews.org.uk

The decorative scheme by Tom Phillips in the Chapel of St George and the English Martyrs at Westminster Cathedral is now completed and will be dedicated by His Eminence Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster on 28 October. 

The chapel honours the English martyrs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The names of the forty catholic martyrs are emblazoned in mosaic across a dark sky in the chapel vault and their suffering is recalled by a depiction of the Tyburn gallows in marble intarsia on the west wall. On the east wall Phillips’ radiating marble design focuses the chapel’s decoration on the relief by Eric Gill that stands over the altar. 

“I thought the martyrs should be given their names” says Phillips “and be in heaven in the vault, the flames of their burning faith still bright. The west wall shows the gibbet at Tyburn as traditionally represented, with the ladders which served it now depicted as ascending above, into the vault. As you face it you are pointing directly towards the site of Tyburn, two miles away at Marble Arch.” 

The ladders also echo Phillips’ earlier marble work relating to Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in the adjacent Chapel of the Holy Souls. The artist recalls how the St George’s Chapel project started over a dozen years ago when Monsignor Mark Langham, then the Cathedral Administrator suggested the texts over the arches, from St Luke and the Nunc dimittis, now realised in contrasting overlaid mosaic in Latin and English. 

The mosaics were executed by Trevor Caley Associates and the Tyburn intarsia by Taylor Pearce Ltd. New marble work at the east end, radiating from Eric Gill’s last work, his reredos of 1946 was made by Paye Stonework Ltd to Tom Phillips’ design. Under the direction of the Cathedral Architect, Michael Drury, Nimbus Conservation were responsible for the carved marble that completed the architectural framework within which the decorative scheme is contained. Drury also directed the decorative work on behalf of the artist and the Cathedral. 

Photo: Mazur/Catholicnews.org.uk

On Saturday 1st October Tom Phillips: A Humument opened at the Manor House Museum with a talk by Patrick Wildgust and Lucy Shortis. The exhibition, part of the Ilkley Literature Festival, continues until Sunday 16th October. Visit the festival website to find out about other related events such as Crossing the Boundary, a workshop with Patrick Wildgust on Sunday 16th October.