“Love him or hate him, his entire career is laid bare in Rizzoli’s monograph of his work, Negation of the Universe. Nearly everything is on view, from his 1996 breakout show at Edward Thorp Gallery to his exhibitions from last year. The works included range from his most famous and widely-publicized paintings such as Scout (1999) to his recent experiments with sculpture and film…Negation draws attention to the ways in which his subject matter has changed with time.” –ArtCritical.com
“Richard Phillips’ hyper-realistic oil paintings embody themes as broad as power, politics, celebrity, fashion, ideology, beauty, and sex, and pose questions about the status of painting today…The book’s exploitive design strategy celebrates the commercial and fashion alliances of the artist’s practice, while revealing the complex politics behind the imagery the artist chooses to paint….the acclaimed Phillips is celebrated with a tome honoring his unique perspective on both art an fashion.” –Life + Times
“Richard Phillips paints celebrities, fashion models, porn actresses and fluffy cats, all in a deadpan, slick style that looks at once like commercial airbrush and the sternest Socialist Realism. His style is creepily commercial, while his subjects—seem perversely chosen. The New York painter is one of the more fashionable contemporary artists in part because his work eludes categorization, but this book makes clear that's because its real subject is the crisis of representational painting in a world of digital photography.” –The Star Ledger