Phil Collins (artist)

Phil Collins (born 1970) is an English artist, and Turner prize nominee.

Phil Collins was born in Runcorn, England and now lives in Berlin. He studied Drama and English at the University of Manchester, graduating in 1994. During his time there he worked as a cloak-room boy and pint-puller at the Hacienda nightclub on Whitworth Street. After a stint teaching performance and film theory at Royal Holloway, University of London, he joined London-based performance group Max Factory whose live art projects showed all over the UK.

In 1998 he moved to Belfast to do a Master of Fine Arts at the College of Art and Design, part of the University of Ulster. His teachers included Alistair Maclennan and Willie Doherty. During his time in Northern Ireland he became an active member of the artist-run collective Catalyst Arts.

While still a student he was selected, as one of just four other artists from Northern Ireland, to show at Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He showed the first video he had ever made called How To Make A Refugee – an 11-minute film shot on the refugee camps at Stenkovec and Chegrane in Macedonia during the Kosovo crisis of 1999.

After completing his MA he spent some time living and working in Belgrade. In 2000 he was picked as one of the New Contemporaries and in the same year won the Absolute Prize. In 2001 he won a Paul Hamlyn Award for visual arts.

He was nominated for the 2006 Turner Prize for solo shows at Milton Keynes Gallery, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, and also for his work in the British Art Show 6. The Tate Gallery describes his work as "engaging photographic and video installations involving diverse social groups. Acting as a catalyst, he encourages people to reveal their individuality, making the personal public with sensitivity and generosity."

...
Wikipedia