Artist Statement /

Photography is rarely the end point of his practice. Instead, the camera marks the beginning of a longer conversation. Walking, listening, collecting, recording, painting, printing and making by hand become equally important parts of the work, allowing each body of work to develop through sustained engagement with a landscape, a person or an idea.

At the heart of his practice is the belief that every place possesses its own history, character and visual language. Rather than imposing a predetermined idea upon a subject, Phillips-McLaren spends time returning, observing and responding, allowing the work to emerge through curiosity, patience and repeated encounters.

Photography, painting and alternative photographic processes exist in dialogue with one another. Materials gathered from the landscape – including natural pigments, salt and other physical traces – become active participants in the making of the work, dissolving the boundaries between subject, material and image. The resulting works are not intended as objective descriptions of a place, but as evidence of an encounter.

Whether working with self-portraiture, portraiture or landscape, Phillips-McLaren continually questions what an image can reveal – and equally, what it cannot. His work explores the image not simply as a representation, but as an object capable of carrying memory, time, material and experience.

Over time he has come to believe that every place has its own language. His role is not to invent that language, but to spend enough time there that the place slowly teaches him how it wishes to be encountered.

Every place has its own language. My practice is learning how to listen.

The camera is only the beginning.