Welcome to Philip’s Website

Quotes

"It takes a while just to find self. You have a certain courage when you’re young. But the thing is that you haven’t learned, when you’re younger, to accept defeats - like the young boy who constantly loses games of chess and constantly asks ‘Want another game?’. As you get older you get more philosophical about defeats. When you get beaten you actually learn more - and sometimes you wish to be defeated. It’s just a question of getting into the psychological realm".

 Philip Trusttum, 1980

"I paint because when I’m painting I learn more about myself. You are private; there are no rules. It’s what I enjoy doing."  Philip Trusttum, 1995

"I couldn’t care a stuff about the world. Painting keeps me off the streets and I take my brain for a walk…If everybody did that, there wouldn’t be any wars."  

Philip Trusttum, 1996


"Open-hearted and endearingly chaotic, thronging with the minutiae of everyday life, his art is generous in a way that makes the current crop of tight-arsed minimalism look even more than usually stingy."  

Justin Paton, 1996


"Philip Trusttum’s paintings are honest and confident, revealing with refreshing clarity a sound, straightforward world. He is an artist who reveals a wide interest in people, animals, music, sport, all the things which make life varied and stimulating, and which are inter-related in so many different ways. His small South Canterbury farm with its horses, dogs, cats and others reflects the warmth of his personal world, a warmth which binds his paintings into some of the most beautiful works, and which create an affinity between the viewer and the painting."  

The Montana Lindauer Art Award 1988


"Every morning he goes to his studio, pins up the previous day’s work,and then begins a new painting. He works on the floor. The carpet area where he works in matted with paint, holding an outline of successive works, signalling the existence of the art by its absence. To those used to the sanctified air of the art gallery, to the conservators’ careful handling of art works with white gloves, Trusttum can be quite shockingly casual about his work. Not about his technique nor the images themselves but about the paintings as physical objects. He stores the works in rolls and tosses them out over the studio floor like a rug seller displaying his wares. Those to be looked at are fixed to the studio wall with thumbtacks and dressmaker’s pins. As we sort and search for works the artist walks across them. Clearly Trusttum is not concerned with the immaculate surface. This casualness should not be taken for carelessness. "                                          

Richard Dingwell, 1997


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