![\"\"](\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/d_phillips_003-1.jpg\")
<\/a>Photo by Simon Blundell<\/p><\/div>\n
Denis Phillips is every sort of artist: he flows comfortably between abstraction and realism, moves easily from the Renaissance of restoration work and making frames to the Space Age of creating his own computer-generated prints and synthesizer music.\u00a0 \u201cI like the change,\u201d he once told me of his genre switches. \u201cIt keeps things from getting too routine.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s known for his abstract canvases, spaces where multiple techniques merge to create atmospheric works that give free rein to the imagination. But he can switch genres, bringing his supple brush to plein air painting, or to creating effective still lifes and realistic nudes. A trip with artist Earl Jones resulted in a twilight painting, just a cloud still in the sky, above a rustic home, dimly lit through a single window by a candle or lantern, fronted by a whisper of barbed-wire fence \u2013 a haunting image I actually dream about.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also known as one half of the couple behind one of Salt Lake City\u2019s premiere galleries. When he and his wife, artist Bonnie Phillips, started a gallery during their hippie days in the 1960s, they had no idea it would still be around 50 years later, representing so many artists, offering the rest of us a little museum with a show that changes monthly, \u201cas always, free of charge.\u201d<\/p>\n
To celebrate this half-century anniversary, Phillips Gallery will exhibit hard-edge paintings by Denis Phillips and sculptures by the late Larry Elsner.<\/p>\n
Art began for Phillips, now 76, when he was just 5 or 6, at his grandmother\u2019s house in Murray. When he wasn\u2019t playing her piano, he would copy N.C. Wyeth illustrations from\u00a0Treasure Island<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Last of the Mohicans<\/em>. Then in junior high, his parents gave him an art course called \u201cCartoonist\u2019s Exchange.\u201d \u201cI still have the how-to books that were sent to me,\u201d he says. \u201cThen I did another one where you entered the \u2018Draw Me\u2019 ads [that appeared on matchbooks and in the back of comics and magazines]. \u201c<\/p>\n His art teacher at Olympus Junior High was Jay Hennifer, a \u201cwatercolor man\u201d and a good teacher. At Olympus High he studied under Lorin Folland, who was a fan of LeConte Stewart. \u201cSo any time he had a show somewhere, we\u2019d go over and look at his paintings.\u201d<\/p>\n His parents and grandparents were musicians who played in a Hawaiian band, with Islanders who had converted to the LDS Church. So Phillips took steel guitar and Spanish guitar lessons as a boy, riding the bus to Jess Kalawaia\u2019s studio on Main Street downtown carrying his dad\u2019s Rickenbacker steel guitar.<\/p>\n His father was a painter and paper hanger and Phillips used to paste paper and trim it Saturdays and summers through junior high and high school. \u00a0\u201cWe\u2019d mix a whole bucket of wheat paste and the brush was like THIS big,\u201d he gestures, spreading his arms almost a foot wide.<\/p>\n Despite all this early artistic exposure, when he started at the University of Utah Phillips didn\u2019t necessarily want to go into art. \u201cI kept thumbing through the catalog trying to figure out what I wanted to study. I tried majoring in art education and graphic design, but I couldn\u2019t stand either one of them, so I just ended up getting a degree in drawing and painting, not knowing what I could do when I graduated. \u00a0I never even thought about being an artist but I do remember the first painting I sold . . . and thinking it was great getting paid for something I liked doing.\u201d<\/p>\n His classmates were the likes of Earl Jones, Tony Smith, Steve Beck and Bob Olpin. They studied with George Dibble, Angelo Caravaglia (Phillips has a piece in the upcoming show that is a print of an etching \u2014in combination with a painting\u2014 he did in a class with Caravaglia; he even still has the copper plate.) Ed Maryon, Alvin Gittens, and Doug Snow (he thinks the second painting he sold was \u201cprobably a Doug Snow knockoff).<\/p>\n While at the U he worked with Associated Food Stores in their sign shop. \u201cThere was another fellow there by the name of Mike Sullivan and about the time I was ready to graduate he found a sign shop for sale so he and I became partners and started painting all the paper signs for Albertson\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n They had 27 stores then so they painted all their banners twice a week, putting the out-of-town store signs on Wonder Bread trucks to be delivered. They eventually split up and Sullivan took the in-town stores and Phillips the out-of-town ones. He also kept the shop on 400 South and 900 East; and a good thing, because that\u2019s where he met Bonnie Gile, who rented the space next door for her studio.<\/p>\n That\u2019s also where the sandal shop was. \u201cI had a friend who was in the architecture department and he and his wife were waiting to go in the Peace Corps so he wanted something to do.\u00a0 Back then, in the \u201860s, there were still some sandal shops in Berkeley. He went and looked them over and we bought all the leather and tools and supplies and made sandals. It was called The Good Sole Sandal Shop. That\u2019s where the Village Inn is now.\u201d<\/p>\n While keeping the two businesses going, Denis was also busy making art, though he wasn\u2019t showing much. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t really any place to exhibit,\u201d he says. \u201cThe shows were few and far between.\u201d<\/p>\n He and Bonnie ended up moving the sign and sandal shop to a new space, the former United Grocery on 9th and 9th, and opened a gallery. \u201cIt was a big space, way bigger than we needed, so a gallery was perfect,\u201c he says. Abstract artist Lee Deffebach, who lived kitty-corner across the street, was willing to make frames, a trade she had learned in New York City, so they added the frame shop, and then decided on art supplies, which Steve Beck ran. \u201cSo we just kept doing stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Their first artists were Tony Smith, Lee Deffebach, Francis Zimbeaux, Don Olsen and Steve Beck. \u201cWe were all friends so it was great. We were painting, being productive, and showing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think the first year we were in business we sold a Tony Smith for $300.\u201d Galleries were so new that Tony Smith recalls when he was told a commission would be taken, he said, \u201cA commission? What, on sales?\u00a0 You\u2019re kidding.\u201d<\/p>\n Fifty years later, Phillips insists the gallery is pretty much the same now as it was then. \u201cWe\u2019re selling more work. But we can have a couple of shows where we don\u2019t sell much and then one where we sell a lot. It\u2019s not a predictable business. It\u2019s unreliable. That\u2019s the life of an artist, also. You can\u2019t count on a paycheck. But framing and art supplies have always been steady. Not so much art supplies now because of the internet. But I keep it because it\u2019s convenient for me \u2013 if I need something I can just go out there and get it,\u201d he says with a smile.<\/p>\n Denis and Bonnie married in \u201966 and though they had hoped to buy the building on 9th and 9th, the owner didn\u2019t want to sell. \u00a0\u201cBonnie\u2019s mother kept telling us to come down here and look at this [their present location] and finally we made the move.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple gutted the two existing apartments and turned them into one, living upstairs for a while. The back building, now Denis\u2019 studio, was rented for a while to the Junior League for its thrift store. He didn\u2019t take it over until the \u201890s, first having worked upstairs where Bonnie\u2019s office is now. Studio space is vital to this artist. As he told a visitor to his 2012 show in Huntsville: first you have to have a dedicated place to paint, then \u201cyou will go there.\u201d He has a combined sitting area and gallery, with a rocker and several other comfortable chairs, a large studio to the east with plenty of light, room for a computer and large canvases, and storage to the west.<\/p>\n In Phillips Gallery itself, the frame shop is in the back, the art supplies are in front, to the west, and the gallery is in the much bigger space to the east. \u00a0The Main Gallery initially was twice as big as it is now, but they needed more room for framing and storage, so reduced its size. The upstairs holds offices, more gallery space and an inviting outdoor sculpture court on the roof. In the basement is the popular Dibble Gallery, where shows are regularly held. \u201cWe shuffled things around until it worked,\u201d says Phillips.<\/p>\n The couple keep up a regular working schedule. They get down to the gallery in the morning and feed the two feral cats that always manage to finagle tuna fish for breakfast. \u201cI get the coffee in order and then look around to see how the work is going framing-wise. I can usually tell by how much we\u2019ve got going in the shop if I need to do some framing or whether I need to do some work in the art supplies. Once I have that under control then I\u2019m free to come back here to the studio. If I have the time, then I paint.\u201d<\/p>\n When he first got out of school Phillips was painting in an abstract sytle, and his non-objective works remain his best-known. \u00a0Though he thinks narrative art is a valid form, he\u2019s never been interested in telling stories. \u201cThe level of painting I\u2019m doing is just a visual exchange \u2014 between me and whoever looks at it, that\u2019s all. I\u2019m not trying to say anything in these abstract paintings. I\u2019m not trying to tell you anything. They\u2019re there for you to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n He believes a lot of people think abstract art has hidden meanings. \u201cSometimes that\u2019s the case maybe, but most of the time it\u2019s either an abstraction or it\u2019s a landscape or it\u2019s a still life. They\u2019re not telling stories in that sense. So it\u2019s not Norman Rockwell or N.C. Wyeth. Just look at it and try and enjoy it.\u201d As he once told me, \u201cAbstraction allows your mind to wander around and think things that may or may not be accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n At some point he also started painting the landscape. \u201cIt was a way of getting away from the shop and going out somewhere and having the afternoon free of framing and all the rest of it,\u201d he says. \u201cBut then as the city grew and you had to go further and further to find stuff to paint it got to be too big of a ride.\u201d Still, he says, \u201cThose are the kind of paintings where I didn\u2019t mess around with imagery. I just painted as well as I could see it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>
\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n\t\t\t
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>