British Surrealist painter, born in 1949 in York, died in 1997 in Zaragoza (Spain).
Life
Born after the dispersal of the first British Surrealist group, that of E. L. T. Mesens and Roland Penrose, Philip West took part in the British Surrealist revival: all his work dates from after the early 1970s. He first joined the small group gathered by the writer John Lyle around the review TRANSFORMAcTION, then contributed to the Dutch review Brumes blondes.
From 1973 he took part in the events of Édouard Jaguer’s Phases movement, in France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium. He then left Britain for Spain, stayed in Venezuela, then returned to Spain, where he pursued Surrealist activities in association with Eugenio F. Granell.
The work
A painter of the object and of a highly personal bestiary, Philip West stands in the line of René Magritte and Toyen. His images, drawn from a “bag of rebuses”, pay tribute to “all the prophets of nonsense”, from Lewis Carroll to Benjamin Péret. He also composed compartmented works in which separate scenes unfold. Édouard Jaguer saw him as a fearless explorer of nonsense.
Exhibitions and collections
- Phases exhibitions: Brussels, 1974; Estoril, 1977; Lyon, 1980; Montluçon, 1987; “Greffages 2”, Paris, 1989.
- “Brumes blondes”, Amsterdam, 1977; “Imagination”, Bochum, 1978.
- Avis Mundi, Zaragoza, 1996.
- “Philip West. Bestiaire”, Eugenio Granell Foundation, Santiago de Compostela, from 26 September 2008.
- “At the Sources of Convulsive Beauty”, section “Édouard Jaguer and the international Phases movement”, Galerie Les Yeux Fertiles, 25 October to 30 November 2024: Sans titre, 1981, oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm.