Black and white prints, New York City The Downtown Buildings

A Native New Yorker and Parsons graduate, Phyllis worked as an advertising art director and then ran her own award-winning design studio for many years. But her interest in the fine arts was revitalized accidently when cell phones got their first cameras. Bored on a long drive in the rain she started shooting out the window and later uploaded the images. The low resolution made interesting patterns and she started to enhance them in Photoshop. This evolved and the cameras improved. She now shoots with her Canon and her iPhone. In addition to Photoshop, she also works with dozens of iPad apps to alter, blend, and create something quite apart from the original shot. Color, light and texture are a theme that one can see through her work. Her philosophy is to create something out of nothing. “An artist sees things others cannot and it is their job to bring that to the world's attention in the same way they see it. I believe in using technology to create, to heal, to share beauty, to communicate an aesthetic however one sees it.” Currently Phyllis has a portfolio of thousands of images.
Her subject matters range from Abstract to Expressionist City Scenes, Landscapes and Seascapes, Still Life, Nature and Animal and more. Her blended images tell a story and speak to a discriminating eye.
It has only been since 2015 that she has been actively promoting her work and exhibiting but since then has gotten a lot of attention and interest in her work.
Phyllis has won over to 20 awards in the past few years including a Best in Show and five first place awards. Her work has been accepted in many regional and online juried shows including the San Diego Art Museum Artist Guild Online Show. But her acceptance into the selective and oldest women’s art group, The National Association of Women Artists (NAWA) in NYC is the accomplishment of which she is most proud. Even more so her recent first-place award for her submission in their “Jazzy” show.
Art collectors have chosen and purchased her art in shows, and she has sold her art personally to art lovers. Her art has also hung on the walls of NYC and Northern NJ restaurants.
In the spring of 2017 she started teaching iPhone Photography and editing at Holy Name Hospital as part of their Cancer Support Community, a national support group. This has expanded to a second class called “Turn Your Photos Into Art”. Her classes, which she calls “Your Personal Lens” have been attended every week by cancer patients, survivors, and their family. In 2019 she also began teaching a class called Art for the Soul, using simple drawing and painting ideas to help people destress and be calm. “I spend a lot of time creating because it is mentally and emotionally healing for me. I teach to share this with others. My greatest win would be to empower others to become award-winning artists who are healed by creating.”
Although almost all of her work is photography based, she has an extensive collection of dynamic abstract art that can be displayed individually or as series and arranged modularly to fit a variety of settings. Phyllis believes art is part of the environment and having options to blend the images into the surroundings is crucial when you are creating for real life.
Please visit her websites shop.artnsoul.biz and www.artnsoul.biz or follow her on Instagram at @Art N Soul.