Trick Hips, his multi-media installation at ArtPace, contains drawings, sculptures, video and photographs that examine popular culture and fine art. Phipps finds himself inextricably caught between the two, and he questions the relative value or merit placed on objects according to conventions of craft, content and form. The drawings, executed on lined notebook paper, function as a diary, but with exercise in automatic writing and plagiarism. The shoddy craftsmanship in the sculptures make them awkward and compelling as Phipps does not really know how to use a sewing machine, but chooses not to let that hinder completion of a piece. The latest works in the exhibition are the photographs, which use Lego System building blocks to recreate maquettes of famous paintings that are then photographed and enlarged to suggest the original source material. The work in Trick Hips refers to a world that is exclusively Patrick Phipps, as a strategy for placing himself within a historical context.
