Campoli Presti is pleased to present Julia Phillips' first solo exhibition with the gallery.

Impenetrable Entry presents works from Phillips’ latest series of ceramic objects. The works on view pose as ‘tools’ that the artist creates incorporating partial body casts using her own body as a matrix. The works allude to the language of functionality while at the same time negating their use as tools, working with the fragility of ceramics.

Objectifier I – IV (2014) is the artist’s first series of ‘body tools’ that relate directly to the body and the interaction of two bodies, exploring Phillips’ interest in mechanical connections. Connecter (2015), Archer (2016) and Positioner (2016) expand into apparatuses that include fluid traces and imprints of the positioned body. The suggestive frame of bodily traces solicits the viewer to make assumptions about a body’s position in relation to functional objects and to other bodies, becoming a screen of projection.

Intentionally leaving space for ambiguity, Phillips’ sculptural objects combine shapes simultaneously suggesting aggression and stimulation. The relief ink prints on paper similarly explore relations of force, tension and embodiment. Raising questions about the coexistence of control and desire, the exhibition continues Phillips’ interest in the relation between feminist, post-colonial, psycho-analytical thought and the body as a primary ground for experience. The video on view further probes questions of hierarchy and agency. Clay and dance are used as demonstrational materials exploring the interaction between the body, sculpture and text.

Julia Phillips is a German-American artist who lives and works in New York. Phillips recently completed her participation in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program after receiving her MFA from Columbia University and her BFA from the Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg (HFBK). Phillips will be an Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2016-2017. Phillips' work was recently featured in the Whitney ISP show at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York (2016) and in A Constellation (2015) at the Studio Museum Harlem, New York.