Andrew Phillips - Artist & Therapist

24/05/2026

Work in progress. Drying rapidly in the heat.

17/05/2026

Much of the work I offer, and many of the ideas that inform it, need a little more space than can be held within a single post or image.

Over recent months I have been gradually reshaping and expanding my website; developing pages and writing that reflect the atmosphere and orientation of my practice more fully. Depth psychotherapy, symbolic imagination, uncertainty, creativity, the role of images, and the relationship between inner life and the wider world all form part of that landscape.

If something here is of interest, you are very welcome to explore further through the website.

www.andrewvphillips.co.uk

08/05/2026

Studio activity...

07/05/2026

"The purpose of Art is to worship and praise life through wonder and magic." - C.Collins

Art, in this sense, is not primarily expressive, conceptual, or critical, but is devotional in nature. It arises from a relationship to life that is grounded in wonder, and in a sensitivity to what might be called the spiritual dimension of experience.

This places his work slightly outside many contemporary frameworks, where art is often expected to explain, interrogate, or position itself within discourse.

This way of understanding art can feel unfamiliar. It moves away from thinking of art as something to be evaluated, explained, or positioned, and instead toward something more participatory. Wonder is not something we analyse from a distance, but something we enter into. In this sense, the image is not asking to be decoded so much as encountered.

🔗 You can read the full article on my website via this link..

Cecil Collins is an artist I have a great appreciation for. This book documents the thoughts and reflections of many of those who knew him, whether as a collector, curator, student of his unique teaching methods, or through other connections.Collins’ work carries a particular quality that is diffi...

04/05/2026

Recent ramble: Abergavenny to Llanvihangel Crucorney.

11/04/2026

I'm delighted that 'At The Roots of Silence' has been selected for the inaugural exhibition at The Boleskine House Foundation, overlooking Loch Ness in Scotland. The Grand Opening is underway this weekend, with the property open to the public for the first time in 260 years.

Boleskine is a place steeped in local history, as well as more widely known due to mysterious associations with former estate owner Aleister Crowley, a prominent thread within the rich tapestry of Western mystery traditions during the late 19th and early 20th century.

The building itself was devastated by fire in recent years, and has undergone a complete rebuild/renovation. From what I have seen it looks like there has been tremendous attention to quality and detail in all aspects, creating a characterful environment for the charitable foundation to go about its mission.

With an emphasis on heritage, arts, and culture, the organisation is developing a library dedicated to the scholarly study of esotericism, and looks set to become a deeply important center for spiritual nourishment in the UK.

For further information you can follow the link in my bio to a recent blog post, or visit the Boleskine website.

At The Roots of Silence
Acrylic on wood panel
40.5 x 40.5 cm
2022

This painting is available, please contact me to enquire.

05/04/2026

By Your Own Light

Acrylic ink, pastel, graphite, on paper
Paper size: 56.5 x 29.5 cm
Image size: 52.5 x 25.5 cm
2026

Available from my website.

The pastel is applied by first crumbling it onto the paper in small amounts, and then smoothing it across the surface by hand. The mountain areas are made using a dip pen with fine nib, or mechanical pencil.


The title takes inspiration from the R.S.Thomas poem The Bright Field.

The poem suggests to me that we must be careful our attention is not consumed by a future that can only ever offer one certainty - no matter the intensity and persistence of any goals or targets we may set for ourselves. Perhaps a sharpened awareness of what is already present within and without, is what truly leads to renewal, lest we manage to lose our Self in the seeking of it.

Many wisdom traditions teach that the presence of true longing can only ever be for something that is already known in some way, and can be greeted as the resonance within an individual of a universal life, or the call of the divine.

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

- R.S. Thomas

26/03/2026

Ghosts in the Nursery

I recently visited this intriguing exhibition by Abigail Norris at Julian Page Chichester. The title of the show comes from a paper by the psychoanalyst Selma Freiburg, which instantly took me back to my time as a trainee at Goldsmiths when I first encountered it.

Moving through the exhibition, between the different dimensions of painting and installation, I had this sense of how the 'ghosts' Freiburg so vividly describes, show up in our lives and in the therapy space. Tangible presences, familiar yet something is unknown, they are both of central significance but only glimpsed in their symbolic forms at the periphery.

"In every nursery there are ghosts. They are the visitors from the unremembered past of the parents. The uninvited guests at the christening. Under all favourable circumstances, the unfriendly and unbidden spirits are banished from the nursery and return to their subterranean dwelling place. The baby makes his own imperative claim upon parental love and, in strict analogy with the fairytales, the bonds of love protect the child and his parents against the intruders. the malevolent ghosts. This is not to say that ghosts cannot invent mischief from their burial places."

- Selma Fraiberg

22/03/2026

Studio update: 22.03

15/03/2026

The Silent Knowing

Acrylic ink, pastel, graphite, on paper
Paper size: 56.5 x 29.5 cm
Image size: 52.5 x 25.5 cm 2026
2026

Available from my website.