Colleen Philippi "Beautiful Mess"

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Colleen Philippi, "The World," 2017

mixed media, 67" x 90"

Newzones is excited to celebrate its 25th anniversary with “Beautiful Mess”, a solo exhibition by Calgary based artist Colleen Philippi.

Philippi’s artwork immediately captures the attention of the viewer. A sense of existential mysticism comes from her highly creative and personal visual vocabulary. Assembling visual building blocks (partial and full letters, word fragments, signs, geometric shapes, patterns, colour samples, paint palettes, isolated furniture, figures, maps, landscapes, animals, insects, birds, butterflies, etc.), she creates mystery, metaphor, poetry, and a sense of regained memory.

In her newest exhibition, Philippi “curates” from her collection of untried ideas. For a host of reasons, these ideas have been in limbo as paper ideas or daydreams, anticipating the day that their time to materialize would arrive. With this show, their time has arrived in the form of an alternative retrospective, something from the parallel world of untried ideas encompassing the eight solo shows that Philippi has had at Newzones over their twenty-five years together.

Colleen Philippi received her BFA from the University of Alberta in 1982. Ms. Philippi has a long exhibition history and exhibits internationally at art fairs with Newzones. In addition to having her magical assemblages in private, corporate, and museum collections, locally, nationally, and internationally, she has completed commissions privately and for public institutions including the following: Rotary Flames House, Calgary, Alberta; Island Hospital, Anacortes, Washington; and Swedish Foundation, Seattle, Washington, amongst others.