Phil Day

Similar to his artist's books, included in Chink in a Daisy-Chain is a drawing by Day illustrating The Wasp in a Wig - the suppressed chapter from Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Day’s illustration recreates the style of John Tenniel’s original illustrations.

As of 2017, Day began collaborating with lithographer Adrian Kellett (of Sunshine Editions); artist and intaglio printer Greg Harrison; and designer binder Suzanne Schmollgruber (of Centro del bel libro Ascona, Switzerland).

Day has continued to write using 'connections', 'slippages', and 'digressions', evident in his A Chink in a Daisy-Chain (2017), the first in a three-book series. A Chink in a Daisy-Chain concentrates on the embattled nature of individual intellectual and creative autonomy. Fiona Capp (Sydney Morning Herald) comments:

VicArts Grants (with Cassandra Atherton & Alyson Miller), for international research and development of a graphic verse novel, that reflects on the anniversary of the first atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

2015, Day wrote, designed, and illustrated Sol, a tabletop role-playing game. ISBN 9780994411303

Phil Day, 2014. Why Qi Baishi is Better for Me than Damien Hirst.

Artist-in-residence at Edith Cowan University (ECU), Perth. 2013. While at ECU, Day commenced and complete an artist's book: And the dead & And the beast (Fold Editions).

In 2010, Day moved to Melbourne, and founded his private press - Mountains Brown Press. No longer having access to printing presses, Day altered his approach in order to continue his interest in making books. The most notable change being each book written in pencil by his hand. State Library of Victoria, History of the Book manager, Des Cowley observed:

2009, Day claimed the world record for the arcade game Galaga officiated by Twin Galaxies.

Day's earliest writings appear in two Finlay Press titles: Familiar Objects (2005), and Goodbye Eggcup (2006). From 2010 to 2013 all Mountains Brown Press titles contain his writing. In 2012, Day wrote an essay for publication and review: Why Qi Baishi is better for me than Damien Hirst. Scott McCulloch, Australian Book Review, commented:

From 2004 onward, Day has almost exclusively created images for artist's books, often in collaboration with Australian authors, including: Cassandra Atherton, Gary Catalano, Julian Davies, James Grieve, and Robin Wallace-Crabbe. In 2015, Day discussed aspects of illustration as a guest panellist on Collaboration at the Adelaide Writers' Week.

There is an understated mood in Day's work, both in subject and material. His pictures invite the viewer into a one-on-one relationship with common things, this includes domestic objects, urban animals, garden plants, and the occasional portrait. It also includes memories, thoughts, and imaginary figurative inventions. All of which, are almost exclusively worked on modest size sheets of paper with modest materials (often coloured pencil and watercolour). In 2003, Sasha Grishin, art historian and critic, said:

Day first came to public attention in 2000 when he was invited to exhibit in the Australian Drawing Biennale. There his drawings were shown alongside those of Davida Allen, Rick Amor, Guo Jian, Euan Macleod, John Olsen, Gloria Petyarre, and Harry Wedge, among others. The exhibition catalogue states:

A brief biographical note states: Phil Day has enjoyed illustrating other people's writing, then binding the results into books, since he was sixteen. An early example of an artist's book illustrated by Day is Imaginary Thoughts and Their Beings (1995). Day became more prolific when he co-founded Finlay Press in 1997. By the close of Finlay Press in 2009, Day had illustrated 16 of Finlay Press's 23 titles. They are: Burly Gryphon (1997), Hungry Magpies (1997), Bomber (1997), Fth (1998), The Last Lost Doughnut (1998), Formingle (1998), Household: Eleven Poems (1998), A Pile of Hair (2003), Top Ten Twentieth Century Monsters (2003), Through Hoops (2005), Familiar Objects (2005), Goodbye Eggcup (2006), Cat's Eye (2008), I’ll Build A Stairway To Paradise (2008), Day By Day (2009), Four Men and Their Ideas on the Erotic. Caren Florance remarked:

The first public exhibition of Day's work was in Switzerland at Museum of Art, Le Locle, Switzerland (1995). His books and drawings have since been exhibited in numerous exhibitions both locally and abroad. Most recently: Mirror of the World, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne (2016); and Impact 9, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China (2015).

Day, a lineal descendant of Wong Ah Sat, was born in Goulburn, New South Wales, living in the same house for his entire childhood and adolescent years. At age 16, he briefly trained as a graphic designer at the NSW Police Academy. Rather than pursue graphic design as a career, Day enrolled at the local technical college to study art. In 1992, he moved to Canberra to study at the Canberra School of Art, ANU (graduating with a Bachelor of Art with First Class Honours). While still a student, he worked as an illustrator and caricaturist at The Canberra Times. He abandoned this path in 1996, choosing instead to work as a printer, binder, and designer of books for the Edition + Artist's Book Studio, ANU. In 1997, Day co-founded Finlay Press, and in the same year he lost the vision in his left eye due to a congenital deformity. In early 2010, he moved to Melbourne, founded Mountains Brown Press, and met his future wife. Together they moved to Toronto, Canada (2010), then to Brooklyn, NY (2011). Day lives in Melbourne, with his wife and their daughter.

Phil Day (born in August, 1973) is an Australian artist. He is formally recognised as a Notable Graduate from the Graphic Investigation Workshop, Australian National University (ANU), alongside Alex Hamilton, Paul McDermott, Danie Mellor and Paul Uhlmann.