2012 Ohio Watercolor Society Jim Brower Lifetime Achievement Award

Marilyn Hughey Phillis

Zanesville, Ohio

The Ohio Watercolor Society is pleased to honor Marilyn Hughey Phillis as the recipient of the Jim Brower Lifetime Achievement Award. Marilyn is a charter member of OWS and her dedication to our organization has no equal. She has served on the board in one position or another, including as President, since the organization’s inception in 1978. She has recently stepped down as a trustee and her wisdom, warmth, and intellect will be missed.

Marilyn Hughey Phillis, whose background is in both art and science says: "Every painting is an adventure in the search for truth and beauty through the use of color, form, and light. I am always looking beyond the surface to the depiction of the human response to nature. It is not just what the eye sees, but what the soul senses, that I find important, and the statement I want to communicate in my work."

Known for her expressive watermedia paintings ranging from representational to cosmic abstraction, she has served as a juror for many major international, national, regional, and state competitive exhibitions for over 35 years. She has judged the international shows of the American Watercolor Society, the National Watercolor Society, most of the major watermedia state shows, and numerous all-media exhibitions.

Marilyn Hughey Phillis is the author of the 1992 Watson Guptill book, Watermedia Techniques for Releasing the Creative Spirit, and has work included in numerous other books and periodicals on art and creativity. She is widely known for her thoughtful lectures and creative watermedia, collage, and healing arts workshops throughout the United States. Detailed information on the artist can be found in Who's Who in American Art, Who's Who in America, and other similar volumes. She has been elected to two Halls of Fame in 2000 in Wheeling, West Virginia, and in Kent, Ohio, and given Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Ohio Watercolor Society and the West Virginia Watercolor Society.

She was the founder of the Ohio Watercolor Society’s national creativity seminar, Stretching Boundaries for Creative People. Leading many art organizations, she was president of the Ohio Watercolor Society, the Southern Watercolor Society, and the Western Ohio Watercolor Society. She currently serves as Newsletter Editor of the American Watercolor Society and is Studio Gallery Director of Artworks Around Town Gallery, Wheeling, West Virginia.

Her work has been exhibited nationally across the United States and internationally in Taiwan, Mexico, China, Bolivia, and France. She has had solo exhibitions in Ohio, West Virginia, Idaho, Tennessee, and smaller venues in other states

Phillis is known for her personal warmth, depth of knowledge, and exciting creative ability. Dr. Charles Dietz, past director of the Zanesville, Ohio Art Center, described her as the "romantic visual poet" for she uses "liquid color to distill the essence of subject and concept. Her more searching abstract-naturalist paintings relate to the energy forces of the earth and space as an extension and deeper expression of nature that goes beyond words and literal representation."