Untitled (Vanished Words, Newtown, for Shirley and Colless)

Michael Phillips established a studio in Metro Arts involving set and print design for TN! Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre and the Queensland Performing Arts. Since his return from London (1987-90), Michael has been working in publication design (books and catalogues), illustration and design (fashion) and screen printing (textiles and printed matter). He has over 35 exhibitions solo and group, over the past 35 years which included a diverse range of works such as paintings, prints, small sculptures and artist books. Michael is completing a Master’s degree at Queensland College of Art (2020) in printmaking.

"Untitled is constructed from ‘unpicked’ (sturdy) brown paper shopping bags, re-glued and re-configured along their folds and seams. One side lightly primed and overpainted— the geometry of the painted work informed by the structure of the re-joined bags. The act of unpicking, flattening, and re-joining produce a soft undulated surface, almost skin-like. When paint is thinly applied the surface speaks through the paint. A simple structure of containment of the everyday, opened, laid flat. Shirley and Colless lived in a small terrace house in Newtown, Sydney. Their lives resonated with a cultural richness that was evident in their considered yet eclectic collection of books, artworks, textiles, and furniture that inhabited most walls and surfaces. With age and ill-health forcing them from the house, the language of the interiors, layered, embedded, read and re-read over time, have disappeared. The work is a homage to this vanishing and everyday loss that occurs across our society. It is also a note of my deep affection I have for them both, who are now deceased."