Phil Arrington, Hendersonville, NC

Artist’s Statement 
Phillip Arrington

I make art by putting together stuff…
things that might normally not go together…
I use objects, toys, photographs, images, color and text. 
Text is almost always the critical ingredient in my work.
I am fascinated by how words and images dance with the
elegant tangle of experience that we all carry deep within.
I believe that:
art has an obligation to ask questions and
art has a responsibility not to answer them.
In my work, I think about how:
Sometimes a word might be your only friend.
Sometimes an image could be your only truth.
Sometimes we have to close our eyes to see.
Sometimes art is fire and algebra.
Sometimes love and light.
Sometimes it’s where water meets
the sky on a dark, starless night.