Pheoris West

In May 2019, was the exhibit Start at Home: Influence, Commitment, Integrity at Urban Arts Space at Ohio State University. There were 143 artworks by H. Ike Okafor-Newsum, Robert J. Stull (1935-1994) and Pheoris West, who all taught in Ohio State’s art or black studies departments. Though no longer painting, West did attend the exhibit and greeted gallery patrons.

West taught at Ohio State University until he suffered a debilitating stroke in March 2016.

West's areas of expertise are painting and drawing, computer graphics, and design. Major influences on his early artistic development included the works of Romare Bearden, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and the 1970s Black arts collective AfriCOBRA.

His art has been shown in various art displays since 1970. Examples of his work are held in the collections of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, the Museo Civico D’arts Contemporaneo Di Gibilina, Palermo, Italy, and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. He took part in the national touring exhibition “To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities". He was a curator for the 1999 "HOMAGE TO JAZZ" at the Martin Luther King Center in Columbus, Ohio. He has also served on the National Endowment of the Arts Expansion Arts Panel, the International Juror National Exhibition of Zimbabwe, and the Ohio Arts Council.

Pheoris West (August 17, 1950 – January 23, 2021) was an African-American artist. He was an Associate Professor Emeritus Ohio State University College of the Arts, where he joined the faculty in 1976.

West was born in 1950 in Albany, New York. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University.