Louis Philo is a multidisciplinary artist who works across painting, sculpture, collage and model making. Following many years working as Creative Communication Director in the communications industry, Philo has strong roots of creative upbringing and understanding between art and fashion. His influences reflect a feeling of physical and emotional displacement and the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi.
Philo’s latest series, titled “This Too Shall Pass”, includes sculptures of framed twigs and reconstructed cardboards. The choice of fallen sticks is intentional, with sticks having long been used as tools of communication, from the Scytales used by the Spartans in the 3rd century to the story sticks used in Aboriginal culture. Sticks are also physical samples of the trees that have helped develop and sustain human existence. By applying deliberate, precise, man-made lines of colour onto this organic material and then precisely arranging them in rhythmic patterns, Philo is commenting upon the ultimate futility of man’s attempts at controlling and ordering the natural world.

Philo’s new series of collage is constructed from cardboard that he has collected, used, and interacted with since the last decade. The resulting surface patina feels both modern and familiar, yet also ancient and unique. The collage series is an evolution of the themes of humankind’s desire to make order out of a chaotic and ever-changing world.
Inspired by childhood visits to museums, Philo was fascinated by the objects and antiquities that were carefully preserved in cabinets and drawers. He draws on the idea of the preservation of objects that have acquired age, and in doing so, these objects acquire new meaning and become time capsules in their own right.