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.

 

Selection of exhibitions

2018

Ten Instructions
(for queer artists)


Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman

2016

Fabricating Histories

2015

Surface Epidermis

Look and Look Again

2014

Re-inventing the museum

2013

Post-humanist Desire

Victoriana:
The Art of Revival


Doing Your Dirty Work

Milkshake

2010

0&1: Cyberspace and the Myth of Gender

2009

North Lincolnshire Poetry Festival

Myth & History

Contrasts

Old Masters - Different Heroines

Cleethorpes & Waltham Libraries


The Bristol Gallery, Harbourside, Bristol

Novas Contemporary Urban Centre, Greenland Street, Liverpool

Solo show, Brand Contemporary Art, Groningen, Netherlands

2007/8





2006
2005
2004
2003

Fading Away
 


The Classical Pre
sent

2002

Manchester Poetry Festival, collaboration with poet Philip Davenport


Hallsberg & Örebro, Sweden



Orleans House Gallery, London + touring, curated by Foundation for Women’s Art

2001

Munster Square, London NW1


St Bartholomew Church, Brighton

2000
1998
1997
1996
1995

Keele University

Konstforum, Norrköping, Sweden

Shrewsbury Museum residency at Old St Chads Church


Manhattan Graphic Center, New York


Shinjuku Cultural Centre, Tokyo