TRACES
Frank Phillips & Cameron Ritcher
Frank Phillips
Lives and works in Charlottesville, VA
ARTIST BIO
Frank Phillips uses his experience with drawing, painting, and physical activity to convey ideas of construction and shape. He received his BA with High Honors from Hobart College in 1997 and received his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2005. Phillips currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia and works at St. Anne’s-Belfield School, where he teaches Painting, Drawing, and is Chair of the Arts.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work uses a flat plane to convey the visual ideas of construction, mass, and volume. The formally arranged imagery is all invented, but takes cues from architecture and engineering (materials and the structures themselves), as well as the erosion and the decay of perceived ruin. The display of process is an integral component to the work; it tracks the time, mistakes, revisions, and the experience used to arrive to a resolved composition. The end results are pieces that embrace surface and relate the ideas of: the used, the weathered, the discarded, and the beaten. I aim to create a quiet calm to the work that is still able to convey a stoic presence.
At its core, the compositions are about physicality and decision making. The immediacy of drawing and painting allows me to attack spaces on the canvas. The size of the plane forces me to use my entire body; the act of painting, drawing, erasing, and sanding all require a certain balance of touch and force. One idea completion may necessitate removal, thereby initiating another physical activity. As an artist, I need the action, and the work needs to be work; the labor is chronicled in the surface as removed elements are never really gone, only ghosts of the materials’ (pencil, charcoal, and paint) permanence.
58 x 44 inches
$6,500
FRANK PHILLIPS
Herkle Derkle, 2024
Acrylic & Graphite on Paper
In Support, 2024
48 x 36 inches
$6,250
FRANK PHILLIPS
Acrylic & Graphite on Canvas
24 x 33 inches
$2,300
FRANK PHILLIPS
SPA 5, 2023
Acrylic & Graphite on Paper
48
$6,250
FRANK PHILLIPS APHELION, 2024
Acrylic & Graphite on Canvas
x 36 inches
December Days, 2023
Panel
40 x 24 inches
$4,500
FRANK PHILLIPS
Acrylic & Graphite on
44 x 31 inches
$3,425
FRANK PHILLIPS
OLR 302, 2024
Acrylic & Graphite on Paper
44 x 31 inches
$3,425
FRANK PHILLIPS
OLR 301, 2024
Acrylic & Graphite on Paper
60 x 44 inches
$6,000
FRANK PHILLIPS
Big Galoot, 2024
Acrylic & Graphite on Paper
Maritime, 2023
28 x 48 inches
$5,500
FRANK PHILLIPS
Acrylic & Graphite on Panel
16
FRANK PHILLIPS
Sweet Pea 1, 2023
Acrylic & Graphite on Panel
x 10 inches
$1,500
Cameron Ritcher
Lives and works in Richmond, VA
ARTIST BIO
Cameron uses painting and assemblage to explore themes of identity, humor, and abstraction. He received a Bachelor of Science in Studio Art from James Madison University, where he accepted the award for a graduating senior with a concentration in painting, among numerous other awards and scholarships. His work is in the collections of Capital One, McKesson Corporation, and the James Madison University School of Integrated Science and Technology, among others. His awards include the Award of Merit from the Edna Curry/ John Bower Exhibition and the Juror’s Award from the James Madison University Undergraduate Juried Show. Presently, he is represented by Hidell Brooks Gallery, Cole Pratt Gallery, and Page Bond Gallery, where he exhibits his work.
ARTIST STATEMENT/VERNACULAR SERIES
I am interested in how humanity, as a whole, has attempted to make sense of our reality, and how I, as an individual, have done the same. We grasp for meaning - what do a culture’s languages, religions, economies, and forms of play reveal about it?
The grid format originated as a reference catalog of thumbnail sketches drawn on a piece of scrap wood. Not thought of as a finished piece, this was initially a way for me to document the shapes and symbols I use - a personal alphabet. I noticed that I enjoy the simplicity and comfort of the grid and how it allows me to focus on color and shape. Some of these shapes reference ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, religious symbolism, or modern advertising. The origin of others is unclear.
This work, to me, feels earthy, agricultural, even rudimentary, yet simultaneously cosmic - intelligent in a way that feels beyond me. That’s what I’m after here - the sense that I’ve made something unknowable yet still elementary, crude in a way that transcends the sum of its own parts. The substance of this work is not in the shapes or the colors but in what happens between them.
Vernacular 14, 2024
Latex, wood, drawing media
36 x 30 inches
$4,900
CAMERON RITCHER
Vernacular 15, 2024
Latex, wood, drawing media
36 x 30 inches
$4,900
CAMERON RITCHER
Vernacular 18, 2024
Latex, wood, drawing media
48 x 48 inches
$6,500
CAMERON RITCHER
Vernacular 16, 2024
40 x 70 inches
$7,800
CAMERON RITCHER
Latex, wood, drawing media, 24k gold leaf
Vernacular 17, 2024
48 x 72 inches
$9,000
CAMERON RITCHER
Latex, wood, drawing media, 24k gold leaf
Vernacular 19, 2024
Latex, wood, drawing media, 24k gold leaf
60 x 60 inches
$9,500
CAMERON RITCHER
Junk Drawer 33, 2024
Latex, oil stick, wood, drawing media 12 x 12 inches
$1,400
CAMERON RITCHER
Junk Drawer 34, 2024
Latex, oil stick, wood, drawing media 12 x 12 inches
$1,400
CAMERON RITCHER
50
$11,000
CAMERON RITCHER
Lunar Eclipse, 2024
Latex, wood, drawing media
x 90 inches
Junk Drawer 35, 2024
Latex, oil stick, wood, drawing media 12 x 12 inches
$1,400
CAMERON RITCHER
Junk Drawer 36, 2024
Latex, oil stick, wood, drawing media 12 x 12 inches
$1,400
CAMERON RITCHER
Junk Drawer 37, 2024
Latex, oil stick, wood, drawing media 12 x 12 inches
$1,400
CAMERON RITCHER
FRANK PHILLIPS
Abbreviated CV
Lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia
EDUCATION
2005 MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art
1997 BA, Hobart College, (High Honors)
SELECT EXHIBITIONS
2023 Solo Exhibition, Quirk Gallery, Charlottesville, VA
2022 Solo Exhibition, Hidell Brooks Gallery, Charlotte, NC
“Color Notes,” Solo Exhibition, George Gallery, Charleston, SC
2021 POETS Group Exhibition, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
Selected Work, Two-Person Exhibition, Colthurst Gallery, Charlottesville, VA
2019 “Pentimento,” Solo Exhibition, Shockoe Artspace, Richmond, VA
“Intro7,” Hidell Brooks, Charlotte, NC
“Those Who Can,” Group Exhibition, Marshall Arts, Memphis, TN
“Continuum,” Solo Exhibition, The George Gallery, Charleston, SC
2018 “Too Much of Too Much,” Juried Exhibition, McLean Project for the Arts, McLean, VA
“Those Who Can,” Faculty Exhibition, ANJG Gallery, Alexandria, VA
“The Practice of Process,” Solo Exhibition, The Welcome Gallery, Charlottesville, VA
CAMERON RITCHER
Abbreviated CV
Lives and works in Richmond, Virginia
EDUCATION
2017 B.S., Studio Art, James Madison University
SELECT EXHIBITIONS
2023 Two Person Exhibition, TEW Galleries, Atlanta, GA
2023 Solo Exhibition, Hidell Brooks, Charlotte, NC
2023 25th Anniversary Exhibition, Hidell Brooks, Charlotte, NC
2022 Class of ’22, Sorelle Gallery, Westport, CT
Vivid Views, Sorelle Gallery, Westport, CT
Good Will (group show), Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
Salon Style, TEW Galleries, Atlanta, GA
SELECT COLLECTIONS
Braden Holtby (Former Goalie of the Washington Capitals)
McKesson Corporation
Della Watkins (Director of the Columbia Museum of Art)
James Madison University School of Integrated Science and Technology
James Madison University School of Art Education
TRACES
Catalog Design
Parita Lamba, Gallery Associate
Lois Park, Gallery Associate
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