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Phil Illingworth is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors and a member and committee
member of Contemporary British Painting.
He describes his practice as experimental, and it is wide-reaching. Predominantly working
in the expanded field of painting, his work also encompasses sculpture, drawing, video,
sound, and kinetics. Whilst his works are usually very highly finished, surprisingly he says
they often originate from spontaneous thought: “Sometimes work comes from particular
experiences or things I encounter in the world around me. It can be as mundane as the
texture of something, or an image that pops into my head while I’m watching TV or looking
out of a train window. I scribble these ideas down there and then, and come back to them
later, in the studio.”
For Illingworth, Some of these experiences are far from mundane. Many years ago a routine
eye test threw up the possibility of the onset of glaucoma. It turned out to be a false alarm,
but he says that experience was probably the most significant of all, and a turning point in
his practice. Another was a freak accident which led to him becoming completely deaf in one
ear. “Losing half my hearing meant I had to adjust how I related to my surroundings, and
this led to a change in my thinking”. His practice makes strong reference to art history, but it
is also political.
instagram: @philillingworth
website: www.philillingworth.com
Public / Private Collections
Phil Illingworth has exhibited in the UK, the USA, China, and in Europe including the 53rd
Venice Biennale. His works have been selected for the John Moores Painting Prize, the
Marmite Prize, and the Jerwood Drawing Prize. In addition to private collections, works are
in public collections in the UK and China and, in 2019, the collection of the Yale Centre for
British Art. His work features on Art UK and Bloomberg Connects.
“There are a couple of occasions when someone has come up to me and said
‘I kept thinking about your work after I left the exhibition’. I really don’t think I
can ask for more than that”
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