Biography

Joel Daniel Phillips is an American artist whose work focuses on the idea of portraiture as a radical act of empathetic connection. Through the tip of a pencil and the bristles of a paintbrush, his portraits examine questions of truth, power, historical amnesia, and the veracity of the stories we tell ourselves about our collective pasts. Phillips’ practice is centered on the belief that portraiture can be a kind of magic: In the face of immense difficulty, it somehow holds the power to connect us, building emotional bridges between humans across chasms of time, distance and individual experience.

Phillips actively exhibits his work across the United States and abroad. His drawings and paintings have been shown at institutions including the National Portrait Gallery, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tacoma Art Museum, Art Museum of South Texas, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Gilcrease Museum, Ackland Art Museum and many others. His work has been selected for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery for the past three concurrent exhibitions (2016, 2019 and 2022), at which he received 3rd prize in 2016 and Honorable Mention in 2022.

Phillips works can be found in the public collections of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Philbrook Museum of Art, Phillips Collection, Ackland Art Museum, Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art, West Collection, Gilcrease Museum, 21c Museum Hotels, Crocker Art Museum, Fort Wayne Museum of Art and the Denver Art Museum. He is currently a Fellow at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His works were featured as a part of the opening of the URBAN NATION Museum in 2017.