Media Gallery

Phil is one of the three finalists of the 2011 edition of AuthentiCity, the photo project by illy issimo and the School of Visual Arts in New York and aimed at young international artists who are SVA students or alumni. Here you find the description Phil does of his work, the way he decided to discover new lifestyles in the city: watching people is the secret, how they "cruise" the city, how they dress. His final work will be on exhibit in July 2011 in New York. Phil Kline was born in Kansas City in 1978. He graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 2002 with a BA in Film and Video, and worked in the film industry in NYC before returning to school to concentrate on still photography. In 2008 he received an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. His personal work is motivated by a persistent desire to better understand what it means to be human, especially the various ways that we live in, and adapt to, urban environments. A frequent contributor to The New York Times, Phil also works as an editorial photographer specializing in dining and portraits. He lives and works in Brooklyn. ALONE Alone is a meditation on solitude. In my own state of melancholy, I wandered the streets of New York City, sometimes trying to find a connection with something unknown, sometimes just trying to get away from myself. When I saw something in the outside world that spoke to me, I framed and captured it. I'm interested in the isolation inherent to the human condition, how the loneliness of being an individual manifests in everyone, and in the strategies people adopt to defend against it. In these photos, I have tried to present a range of emotions that derive from the state of being alone. While isolation can be painful, it is also a necessary corollary to self-awareness: alone, we can sense the passage of time, can remember the past and imagine the future, and are aware of our own mortality.