Meet Paul Travis Phillips

Artfolios will host a Conversation and Studio Visit with Paul Travis Phillips on Saturday, August 12, 2023 from 2:00-4:00pm. The visit will take place at SECCA in the Hanes House located at 750 Marguerite Dr., Winston-Salem, NC 27106. This event is free and open to the public. Hors d’oeuvre.

Order of Events

•2:15pm: Conversation in the SECCA Hanes House Living Room

Travis will discuss: the nature of being an artist today, his impact on and connection with SECCA, an artist's roll in the community, and his 5-step process for creating. A Q&A to follow.

•3:15pm: Explore the Ballroom Collective Studio

You will have the opportunity to see Travis' in-progress work for an upcoming show at Sechrest Art Gallery at High Point University entitled "ā ˈkwī-ət ˈläf". Artwork will be available for purchase.

Participation Encouraged

Travis is collecting banned books for his upcoming exhibit. We encourage you to bring and donate a banned book on August 12th. (More information on banned books below.)

For questions please reach out to Carrie Leigh Dickey, Owner and Visionary, at (336) 971-8957.

Why banned books?

Having been raised during a time in which accommodations often operated as a fast track to stigmatization, I have navigated my education and career with undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD. Whereas complex and nuanced ideas have always been, my bread-and-butter dyslexia has plagued my access to much content over the years. Couple my experience of words, letters, and numbers slipping about on pages with the wanderings and wonderings of ADHD… in many regards, I have considered standard access points to ideas, perspectives, theories, and “knowledge” redacted and/or banned from the likes of me—accessible only to those with the appropriate neurological code.

My upcoming exhibition, āˈ kwī-ət ˈläf, will engage with some of the struggles and dissonance that exist between language and ideas. One remarkably troubling barrier that is on the rise yet again is the outright banning of books. In response, one piece in the exhibition will be a form of quiet protest.

A single chair will be positioned beside a pile of banned and/or challenged books. A motion activated camera will record participants as they give to, take from, and engage with this installation. Participants are invited to sit, read, perform, protect, and consider their access to questions, curiosity, ideas, perspectives, challenges, knowledge, histories, entertainment, freedoms…

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Who is Paul Travis Phillips?

Paul Travis Phillips, Founding Artist, is a Winston-Salem conceptually based artist and educator. Phillips’ work is about philosophy and the limits of language, both written and spoken. Phillips co-opts and subverts traditional sources of information such as books, articles, and notes to explore the nature of language as it relates to the search for knowledge and meaning. The resulting paintings, installations, videos, and resurfaced objects inhabit the space between this and that, here and there, confusion and understanding, inarticulate and nameable. The deconstructed nature of his pieces allows the viewer to venture as far as they are willing in a philosophical search for meaning.

Phillips earned his MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has exhibited across North Carolina and in New York, including at Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, the Ackland Art Museum and Duke University. Phillips has been an artist in residence at Milligan College and VCU Space and he frequently presents on his research and conceptually driven pursuits.