“Artists don’t die,” notes Phillips. “I invade artists’ dreams and invite them to talk with me.” His lifelong dialogue with Whitman is represented by Robust American Love, a series of thirty watercolor illuminations of quotations from the poet’s best-known works as well as obscure sources. Written in Phillips’ easy hand, devoid of quotation marks and freed from their original poetic form, these meditations become Phillips’ as much as they are Whitman’s. Alive and elastic, their words harmonize naturally with Phillips’ provocative illuminations. Learn about the intimate bond between poet and artist as Phillips discusses Whitman’s influence on his life and work with Karen Karbiener, curator of “Robust American Love: Avid Visions by Walt Whitman and John Ransom Phillips (Blackbook Presents, Brooklyn, August – September 2019).

John Ransom Phillips is a New York based contemporary artist who works across various mediums: painting, film, theater and poetry. His paintings combine image and text, nodding to the legacy of Symbolism, in that they demand the spectator unpack them, with careful consideration for what they portray beyond appearances. Mr. Phillips received his BA and PhD in Art History from the University of Chicago and BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. To learn more about John Ransom Phillips and his art, visit www.johnransomphillips.com.

Karen Karbiener, president and founding member of the Walt Whitman Initiative, is a Whitman scholar and teaches at New York University. Winner of the Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress and a Fulbright recipient, she was the curator of “Whitman and the Promise of America” (South Street Seaport Museum, NY, July – December 2005), “Poet of the Body: New York’s Walt Whitman” (with Susan Tane; Grolier Club, NY, May – July 2019), and most recently, “Robust American Love: Avid Visions by Walt Whitman and John Ransom Phillips” (BlackBook Presents, Brooklyn, August – September 2019).