Phil Frost

Phil Frost (b. 7 February 1973, Jamestown, New York) is an American contemporary painter, installation artist and former graffiti and skateboard artist. He lives and works in New York City and is entirely self-taught.

At 18 he moved to Astoria, Queens, immersing himself in New York's skate culture and studying Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Jasper Johns, Keith Haring and the choreographer Pina Bausch at the Metropolitan Museum and public libraries. In the 1990s he earned notoriety as a street artist, tagging walls, old doors, tables and found objects with a distinctive white-on-white texture that blended graffiti, primitivism and graphic design.

His signature body of work features multi-layered mixed-media paintings and installations — vibrant portraits, elaborate typography, bold white symbols (often drawn with correction fluid), obsessive patterning of curves, circles and arabesques, collaged newspapers, scores, drawings and cartoon characters, and found objects (footballs, water bottles, baseball bats, suitcases, bottles, feathers, glass) transformed into ritualistic artefacts.

His first gallery show was in 1997. Key solos followed: Bolsar 7 (1998) and SaLORbALMB Capsized (1999) at Jack Shainman Gallery, Litany (2001) there, and Soalmb Seven (2002), his first US museum show, at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Group shows include Beautiful Losers (2004, Cincinnati). His art has appeared on album covers, skateboard decks and commissions for DC sneakers and Absolut Vodka.