Studied Fine Art at Manchester College of Art and Design with postgraduate study at Leeds College of Art and Leeds University.
Has taught at several universities in the UK, particularly Staffordshire University, and has been affiliated to many more as a visiting artist, External Advisor or External Examiner.
Originally a printmaker, the adoption of a feminine persona and the transition to photographic masquerade occurred in the mid-90s to fulfill personal as well as artistic needs.
Much of the work critiques and subverts representations of women found in traditional painting and sculpture. Many works are based on 18th & 19th century paintings, usually by male artists, in which the women represented are invariably young, attractive and often eroticised. Enshrined within historical collections or major exhibitions, such paintings have acquired status as icons of high culture. By performing the female subjects Phil Sayers disrupts this and brings new interpretations to the originals.
Recent work, made with a group of older women, celebrates the mature body and portrays ambivalent messages about constructed gender and sexuality in order to challenge conventional representations of beauty.
Contributed to an exhibition hosted by The National Queer Organisation of Iceland In 2018.
| 2018 | Ten Instructions |
Gallery 78, Reykjavik, Iceland |
| 2016 | Fabricating Histories |
Discovery Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
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| 2015 |
Surface Epidermis |
Solo show, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts,
Taiwan |
| 2014 | Re-inventing the museum |
Solo show, B.B.Art, Tainan, Taiwan |
| 2013 | Post-humanist Desire |
Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan |
| 2010 | 0&1: Cyberspace and the Myth of Gender |
501 Contemporary Art Centre, |
| 2009 | North Lincolnshire Poetry Festival |
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| 2007/8 2006 |
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| 1995 |