Bio
Jerry Bedor Phillips is an artist living and creating in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the building manager, studio assistant, and gallery coordinator for the Vanderbilt University Department of Art and Space 204, the contemporary gallery space located in the E. Bronson Ingram Studio Arts Center. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in printmaking and drawing from Murray State University in 2007 and his Master of Fine Arts degree in printmaking and drawing from Bradley University in 2010.

Statement
As a landlocked Pacific Islander, Second-generation Palauan American, raised in a small Kentucky town of Hopkinsville, my personal identity has always lain somewhere in the cross-section of these contradictory terms. My studio practice is rooted in the exploration of these concepts and how they relate to each other and myself, starting first with me, then branching outside of myself to my sisters, my parents, my extended family, and finally to my family’s involvement in Palauan culture and history. The imagery in my work is pulled from family photos, memories both from my immediate family I experienced as well as memories of individual family members and events I have inherited through my mother’s line and the Republic of Palau – a small archipelago in Micronesia.