Leon Phillips
Whirl

Exhibition text/press release: Phillips’ gestural paintings immerse viewers in an experience where colour, material, and movement converge. Working with canvases laid flat rather than on the easel, he engages in a horizontal practice that heightens the physicality of paint itself—its weight, viscosity, and unpredictability. Through repetition and swirling layers, each work records the artist’s gestures while simultaneously prompting a vicarious bodily response from the viewer. More than a formal exploration, Whirl also challenges ingrained assumptions in the history of painting. Phillips interrogates gendered biases that link gesture to masculinity and colour to femininity, proposing instead a non-binary understanding where both are inextricably entwined. His work becomes a conduit for shared sensory experience, expanding the language of contemporary abstraction and opening up new ways of seeing and feeling. Born in Spalding, Canada in 1964, Leon Phillips is a contemporary painter currently based in Vancouver. His work has been exhibited in solo presentations at the Yukon Arts Centre (Whitehorse, Canada) and the Amelia Douglas Gallery (New Westminster, Canada), and is held in collections including the Canadian Consulate General (Chicago, IL, USA) and the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre (Daugavpils, Latvia). He has participated in programs and residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Canada) and the International Painting Symposium at the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre. Phillips’ practice pushes the boundaries of colour and form, embedding painting with structural and conceptual force.