Bio
Philip Douglas Portoghese
One of my biggest influences is my teacher and friend George Cramer (1938-2004). https://publicart.wisc.edu/george-cramer-awakening/ Perhaps more than any other person, he challenged me on many important philosophical aspects of art and creative process. Inspired by his experienced guidance I was able to see my own work as an attempt to discover and express a living content. Above all, he helped me and many other young artists to listen to and follow our own inner rhythms.
With respect to famous artists, the one I am closest to philosophically as well as temperamentally is without question the German-Swiss painter Paul Klee (1879-1940). What he attempted through his unmatched individuality and experimentation was a wonderfully spontaneous play of expressive forms. He often achieved this, in my view, without resorting to dogmas or formulas. In this manner, Klee’s art speaks free of artifice or artificiality, through the dream-like imagination, at times capturing a beautifully innocent and divine inner essence.
Chronology
1983-85 General Studies, Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN
1986-87 Motion picture film work: Creation of sound 16mm shorts
1987-90 Undergraduate studies in history, philosophy and studio arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison
1990-93 Graduate work in sculpture and painting, University of Iowa
1995-97 Creation of first computer works; Move to Brooklyn, NY (1996)
1998-2001 Workspace at Gowanus, Brooklyn
2002-07 Workspace at D.U.M.B.O., Brooklyn
2006-11 Creation of small gouache and watercolor works
2012-13 Creation of first large watercolor works
2013-16 Residence and studio work in New York and Switzerland; Workspace at Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (2015-present)
2015-16 Residencies: Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA; Nota Bene Loft, Cadaquès, Spain
2019-22 Writings (unpublished) A Realm of Knowledge–Principles of Creative Process in the Arts [To read an excerpt of this text, see Writings page of this website]
2023-24 Collaborative formation of Creative Circle, an art and philosophy discussion group in New York City.
Related Topics: Reading Interests
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Pantheon, 1949; The Mythic Image, Princeton University, 1974.
Mircea Eliade, Birth and Rebirth: The Religious Meanings of Initiation in Human Cultures, Harper & Brothers, 1958.
Richard Buckminster Fuller, Intuition, Doubleday, 1972.
Carl Gustav Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Princeton University Press, 1959.
John E. Pfeiffer, The Creative Explosion: An Inquiry in the Origins of Art and Religion, Harper & Row, 1982.
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, 2 vols., Falcon’s Wing Press, 1958.
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, 2 vols., Knopf, 1970.