Joel Daniel Phillips
Joel Daniel Phillips is an American artist whose work focuses on the tenets of classical draftsmanship employed in monumental formats. Inspired by the depth and breadth of human experience, he strives to tell the personal and societal histories etched in the world around him. The focus of his work centers on questions of truth, historical amnesia, and the veracity of the stories we tell ourselves about our collective pasts. His current drawings are re-contextualizations of archival historical material, and walk the line between describing a shared, forgotten history and prophesying a terrifying, Orwellian future.
Phillips’ work has been exhibited at institutions and galleries across the United States as well as abroad, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tacoma Art Museum, The Art Museum of South Texas, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Gilcrease Museum of Art, and the Ackland Art Museum, among others. In 2016 he was the 3rd prize recipient in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and the artist is currently a Fellow at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Phillips’ drawings can be found in the public collections of the Denver Art Museum, the West Collection, the Gilcrease Museum, and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.
On The Artwork
Charlie Lee, otherwise known as “Chopper”, is an entrepreneur, Vietnam Veteran and deep lover of all things San Francisco. We met at his scrap metal business in the Hunters Point Bayview Neighborhood, a business Charlie started while living on the street, and which he grew to the point of being able to help support putting his daughters through college. Charlie and I collaborated on this portrait to explore and commemorate his experiences as an Army Veteran for a fundraiser supporting a Veteran’s Services Non-Profit.
