Philip Blair

Statement

My work explores the beauty of the outdoors through personal prisms of abstract shapes and balanced geometry. I seek to transform life’s confusion, bewilderment, and loneliness into harmonic visuals that convey peace and a sense of presence. At its core, my practice is about creating sense from nonsense, order from chaos, and moments of contentment from disappointment and frustration.

I use the camera as a way to better understand the world around me. It’s not just a creative tool — it’s a practical, even essential, instrument for living. While my primary genre is landscape, my deeper projects are streams of consciousness — journeys of the mind, meditations on the personal, the profound, and the seemingly insignificant.

Since late 2016, my focus has turned to studies in loneliness and sadness, with a particular interest in their remedies. I’ve long understood that loneliness is not the same as hopelessness, though the two often share an uneasy resemblance. Being physically alone in wide-open space can stir haunting agitation, even panic. But solitude, when practiced intentionally, has the power to reframe this discomfort. With time and attention, moments of deep peace and subtle beauty emerge from these unlikely places. Calmness follows.

The resulting visuals and images reflect these journeys to the outer reaches — and become messages of quiet hope and resilience, counteragents to today’s more pervasive illusions of disconsolation and despair.