Dr. Heather Phillips

Biography

Heather Raquel Phillips is an artist, independent curator, and educator living and working in Philadelphia. Phillips, of mixed Afro-Boricuan descent, focuses on generating interdisciplinary systems that emphasize joy and personal agency for marginalized peoples. Her work addresses themes of power, sexuality, and deviance. Phillips graduated with honors from the Tyler School of Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2008) and received a Master of Fine Arts from The University of Pennsylvania (2016). She has been awarded the Toby Devon Lewis Fellowship, the Stuart Engle Scholarship, and the Silverstein Photography Studio Abroad. Phillips lectures on Undergraduate Fine Arts and Design at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, as well as at the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Lincoln University. Her work has been featured in various art and cultural publications including Hyperallergic and ArtForum.com. In 2017, Phillips received the Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant and in 2020 the Transformation Award. In 2019, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago. Phillips also curated a textile gallery project called 'Pinch-hitter Projects' in 2020, funded by an Art Essential Grant, and furthered her experience with a summer apprenticeship at the Fabric Workshop Museum in 2022. Her writing has been published in the Black Scholar, in the issue titled 'Limits of Desire, Black Radical Pleasure'. She has exhibited nationally and internationally.

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