Artist Highlight: Philip Lique
Image: Pedro Wazzan, 2020.
Philip Lique is a multidisciplinary artist in residence at Bakehouse since 2020. Philip’s practice focuses on blending craft and generative art-making with public engagement. His practice alternates between sculpture, installation, printmaking, and independent publications. Lique is a self-described “obsessive maker,” integrating creation and daily routine in producing work that reflect the intersection of otherwise distinct interests.
Philip was recently selected as the inaugural artist for Bakehouse and The Bass Museum’s collaborative program, The Windows Project. As part of this program, he has created the site-specific installation Living and Made, now on view at the storefront of the Walgreens on 23rd Street and Collins Avenue.
Can you tell us about your artistic practice?
I'm a multidisciplinary artist, rooted in craft practices, tangentially working with artists in publicly engaging projects.
I try not to differentiate between what I do in or outside of my studio. For me, projects tend to work best when I'm integrating them into my life, rather than separating or categorizing them as something tangential to my routine.
I'm an obsessive maker. Lately, I've had more involvement with forms of digital fabrication regarding both tools and Web3 technology. It's a challenge to integrate them; I'm still searching for the place in my work where they all intersect, but getting more comfortable.
Though my work is craft based, I lean toward building installations or creating spaces that people can exist within or interact with. Sometimes those efforts manifest as a group show. Sometimes they manifest as curatorial projects. Sometimes they manifest as furnished spaces. Occasionally, they manifest as independent publications.
Tell us about a personal artistic project or body of work that you are currently excited about.
I'm working on a show for the fall season this year. This body of work is inspired by my family history, and my initial introductions to "the arts.” I'm thinking a lot about craftsmanship, middle class labor, and my formative introductions to being creative. It’s sometimes difficult to separate "nostalgia" from "interest" in a subject… so this has been a consuming physiological exercise.
Right now, I'm translating a number of craft patterns into alternative materials. I recently collaborated with my mother on a quilt. I'm building vessels out of wood. I'm making lamps. It will all make sense in the end.
Tell us about how you have developed as an artist since you began working at Bakehouse.
Connection to community and the shop facilities have been the keystones to my development as an artist at Bakehouse. I manage the wood shop and I've become the default organizer of artist meetings, which are both great ways for me to personally engage with the other artists and visitors involved with the residency.
I also think having a platform for visibility is an important part of my career. Being associated with the Bakehouse, or having it as a reference point that legitimizes my practice, has moved my work along in professional circles and aided my pursuits of grants for projects. I think that it's important to give to a community without expectation of getting anything back… but every now and again my involvement with Bakehouse pays off in a way that I’m not expecting it to.