Lee Phillips

Lee has an incurable urge to draw constantly and feels a genuine agitation if he has to endure any prolonged period of time away from the activity. His current project will very much satisfy this craving as it'll require him to illustrate every single item in his late grandfather’s tool shed.

Lee graduated with a Masters Degree in Visual Communication in 2003 before completing a PGCE in secondary Art & Design in 2005. He's been teaching Art in Sir Thomas Picton School in Haverfordwest for the past 9 years and is currently on a sabbatical to allow him the time and energy to focus on The Shed Project.

Whilst writing a paper on ‘gender identity’ during his MA, Lee began to question and understand the very delicate balance of power in the matriarchal environment he grew up in. (Until he was old enough to know better, he thought men only drank coffee and women only drank tea!) The notion of masculinity, what it represented and how it was portrayed was something that he was quietly proud of in terms of his own family unit. The shed and the garage were often quiet places. Places of solitude, independence and hard work. It's these values - patience and integrity especially, that have driven him towards this body of work.

Lee will talk about the social and visual history of the mammoth task that is The Shed Project, his love/hate relationship with digital media and his desire to become a drawing machine.