“It blindsides you,” says American artist Richard Phillips on coming across the striking muses he has rendered in close-up drawings and oil paintings over the last two decades, since taking up residence in New York in the early 90s. Private photographs of Phillips in his 12x12 East Village studio-cum-apartment are seen here alongside artworks taken from a major US survey Negation of the Universe, opening at the Dallas Contemporary, Texas, next week, which include a surf-ready Lindsay Lohan and appropriations of fashion photography and found erotica. “The images came from 2nd street nearby, where a photographer had neatly bundled up his magazines from the 60s and 70s and put them out to be recycled,” recalls the artist. “I was blown away by the advertising and imagery of all these beautiful women because that’s what commerce is traded on: the most powerful, sexually alluring images of fashion that we’re you’re inundated with.” The artist’s pop-steeped body of work has seen him immortalize tabloid favorites Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, as well as Dallas resident George W. Bush. Inversely, Phillips’ Gagosian-represented works have earned him commissions from the high-fashion world including MAC, Jimmy Choo and Elle. Fresh from kicking off Dallas Art Fair at this year’s MTV RE: DEFINE benefit, Phillips talks Playboy provocations and Tumblr. 

On questioning the art establishment...
I had a sculpture in West Texas called “Playboy Marfa” that attracted a lot media attention and evoked a very interesting debate about whether or not it was art, and that debate got taken all the way to the offices of department and transportation, with a room of attorneys discussing what is art? Now that the piece is back in Dallas, displayed on a museum's property, it's almost incontrovertible. For me any opportunity I get to have to talk about art in that way is very important.

On 90s New York…
All those big paintings seen in the slideshow–and they’re big–were made in a 12x12 foot room that I lived in on Tompkins Square Park on 7th street, looking out over the park. I only have vivid memories of it from the fumes alone.

On embracing the digital age…
I think it’s a dialectical relationship; you give what you can get. If you’re inspired to put out things to Instagram, Twitter, it can end up serendipitously inspiring another work. Tumblr also is a great archival rush of imagery. I feel like it’s just as much a place for finding things as it is creating things.

Negation of the Universe runs at the Dallas Contemporary April 11 through August 10.