Richard Phillips’ paintings combine sometimes lurid pop imagery with a refined, academic almost-too-slick painting style. He takes material from sources like soft porn, advertising, fashion, celebrity culture, and Pop art and translates it into glossy, photorealist works with stylized, close-up figures rendered in vivid colors. His portraiture ranges between political figures like George Bush and pop culture icons like, Lindsay Lohan (above and below) Justin Timberlake and Miley Cyrus. In his first US solo museum exhibition, Negation of The Universe, Phillips brings his polished exploration of pop culture to Dallas. The exhibition will feature both past and new works that emphasize his career-long "exploration of political and social identity, consumerism, eroticized desire and social constructs". In tandem with the exhibit, his monumental outdoor sculpture, Playboy Marfa, which will be installed outside Dallas Contemporary. (If you recall, the Texas Highway Dept. ordered the removal when it was installed outside Marfa, as it was deemed “advertising”, which won’t be in problem in the city limits of Dallas, I guess.) The exhibit opens tomorrow and runs through August 10, 2014.

Phillips installation, which was commissioned by Playboy's Neville Wakefield, was ordered removed by the Texas Highway department as it was deemed to be advertising, will be on view outside Dallas Contemporary for the run of the exhibit.