Joel Daniel Phillips

Joel Daniel Phillips is an American artist whose work focuses on the tenets of classical draftsmanship employed in monumental formats. Inspired by the depth and breadth of human experience, he strives to tell the personal and societal histories etched in the faces of those around him. Through the tip of his pencil, the artist seeks to find moments where our projected senses of self are transparent, allowing deeper, more truthful emotions to become visible.

Phillips’ work has been exhibited at institutions and galleries across the United States as well as abroad, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Tacoma Art Museum, The Art Museum of South Texas, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Mesa Contemporary Arts Center, The Ackland Art Museum and the Philbrook Museum of Art. In 2016 he was the 3rd prize recipient in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and the artist is currently a Fellow at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Phillips' drawings can be found in the public collections of the Denver Art Museum, the West Collection, the Gilcrease Museum, and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.  

A true portrait is far more than a rendering of physical form—it is the capturing of the vulnerable, un-invented narratives that make us human. Seeing and understanding these is my ultimate goal. – Joel Daniel Phillips