P·P·O·W is pleased to present It Was Sunny, but Then It Started to Rain, Pat Phillips’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Blending personal, historical, and pop cultural imagery, Phillips creates dreamlike compositions that examine complex questions of race, class, labor, and militarized culture. The exhibition, which features paintings and works on paper from 2020 to the present, combines Phillips’s background in graffiti with a sophisticated study of figuration and elements of the Baroque to depict American subcultures. Utilizing elaborate levels of layering and detail, Phillips’s works often have a biographical entry point, accented by humor and popular cartoons as a means of deconstructing the violent underpinnings of political and social traditions. Bringing familiar faces and objects into new contexts, Phillips presents a dynamic image of America in the 21st century.

Pat Phillips (b. 1987) was raised in Louisiana and now lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. Phillips’s work was featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. He has presented solo exhibitions at Jeffrey Deitch, New York, NY; M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, New York, NY; Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA; and Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA, among others. Phillips has participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, and in 2017, received a Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant. His work can be found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; Block Museum of Art, Evanston, IL; Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria, LA; and New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA, among others. In 2023, Phillips’s work was on view in Inheritance at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, and he presented Strange Suburb, his third solo exhibition at M+B, Los Angeles, CA. Quality Control, Phillips’s first monographic book, was published in summer 2023.