STEVE
PHILBEY
Steve Philbey 19th June 1943 - 31st August 2022
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Steve Philbey was a painter, muralist, graphic artist, photographer and chronicler of The Saint-Just Mob. And also variously a factory worker, father Christmas, painter and decorator, film extra, demolition worker and Victoria Line tunneller.
He has work in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art Utrecht, Artists Union Moscow, Russell Coates Museum Bournemouth, The Photographers Gallery London, The Williamson Art Gallery and Museum Birkenhead and The Victoria and Albert Museum London. Steve was also known as Steve Dorley-Brown.
"When the drawings and paintings are examined closely they seem to yield extra information, but few give an exact key of the process involved, in this sense I think they are exceptional. They embody a considerable variety both in form and mood, and they provide information about the systems on which they are based when considered fully. What I like is when your eye travels around one of your paintings, one might find that in one direction, say, vertically, the colour of series of elements changes, simultaneously another series progressing horizontally changes as well and I do like the one with discs as they seem to help the entire orchestration of the painting. At least the process is logical and very complex. What is interesting however, is that having decided on vertical, diagonal and horizontal lines, the range of colours and forms, and the system which will manipulate the result is quite unforeseeable to both you and the artist’s audience.
I Feel that the very notion of having a system in relation to making paintings is often anathema to those that who value the mysterious and the intuitive, the free and and the expressionist in Art. Systems nevertheless dispense neither with intuition or mystery. Intuition is instrumental in the design of the system and mystery always remains in the final result. The paintings and drawings are in the truest sense experiments since each work consists of new propositions and their unexpected outcomes"
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Howard Pierce, painter & graphic artist.