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Phil In Phlash
While most photographers choose invited access and official photo shoots, Phil In Phlash prefers to catch celebrities off guard, capturing the true essence of the individual
— not always as they would like the media to see them. The refreshingly un-posed compositions neither restrict interpretations nor dictate conclusions about the individuals represented — rather, they capture the elusive moment, making concrete that which is typically ephemeral. Phil In Phlash’s photographs force the viewer to look behind the curtain of celebrity. This technique does incite trouble! He likes to say,” he’s been thrown out by more bouncers than a card counter in Vegas.” His massive photo collection of rock and roll artists, as well as film and art world celebrities, has earned him an international reputation. His life-long mission is “to explore strange new worlds, and to boldly go where no camera-man has gone before.”
Phil In Phlash grew up in Boston where he received a B.F.A. in photography from the Massachusetts College of Art. While in art school, he was a founding member of the art collaborative Punkt Data and had his first one-man show at the Punkt Data Gallery. He was selected to participate in the Boston Now exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston in 1985. Since moving to Chicago in 1988, Phil has had several solo exhibitions of his work at various galleries and his images have been published in hundreds of local and national media. In addition, he was chosen by Jean Claude Lamage, photography curator at the Biblioteque National, to participate in Selections 5 (from Polaroid’s International Collection) exhibited at Photokia 1990 in Cologne, Germany. He also received a one-man exhibition in Germany by the GMBH Fotogalerie.
Phil In Phlash has been affiliated with Gallery East since the first of two shows there in 1981. Most recently, over 120 of his images were featured in the Gallery East production of ALL AGES: The Boston Hardcore Film…