Artist's Biography
North Carolina is the home of renowned landscape painter Phillip Philbeck. His subjects, mountains, rolling piedmont, and coastal views, hold great appeal with magnificent vistas, wide sandy shores, wonderful spring and fall foliage. Born in Washington, D.C., but a resident since very early childhood and presently living in rural Rutherford County, the artist enjoys the surroundings in which he grew up and is inspired to paint its farms, streams, ponds, coast or anything to which he feels an emotional attachment. Painting from his comfortable studio in his home, the artist only has to venture outside to find inspiration for his next landscape.
Philbeck’s work depicts the bucolic and wild landscapes of America and Canada, often in dramatic light and grand scale. Working mainly in oil on canvas, his works are highly detailed, realistic, and reflect the variegated American landscape such the Rocky Mountains, the rolling hills of the Carolinas, or crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Elements of Regionalism, the Hudson River and Barbizon Schools are his most prominent artistic influences and is part of the artistic movement or “school” known as the Blue Ridge Realists.
Growing up, the artist drew and painted whenever he could. With a heritage of an artistic and creative family, Philbeck’s father, who also painted, encouraged his son and nurtured the budding artist’s talents. Although basically self-taught, young Philbeck attended college where he was mentored by instructors who saw a passion and talent that they encouraged the artist to pursue. At the age of only 24, Philbeck began publishing limited edition prints, with many releases having sold out.
Philbeck has a natural attraction to familiar places and things. He recalls fondly exploring the wooded landscapes of neighboring hills and mountains of his childhood, and he puts these many memories on his canvases. The artist’s greatest enjoyment comes from knowing that viewers can relate to his paintings or be taken back to a time when nature was a new, awe-inspiring adventure.
When he is not painting, Philbeck enjoys constructing his own stretchers for his canvases and also possesses the talent to create frames for some of his paintings. The artist sometimes enjoys relaxing moments creating music with his guitar.