I first met Philip Geiger as a prospective student at UVA. I remember him taking the time to converse with me in a shady spot beside the old art building, Brooks Hall, a Victorian anomaly on the austere, neoclassical campus. I came away convinced that this was a place that I could learn to paint seriously and enrolled that fall. Philip’s figure drawing and painting classes became my refuge on campus my freshman year. I remember we worked ambitiously, sometimes large-scale, with multiple models perched about the room, framed by the large, arched windows.
My impression of Philip remains largely unchanged since that first meeting - as someone with a gentle, thoughtful demeanor, who is highly accomplished yet approachable, and genuinely interested in others. The times that I have seen him since graduating he has always welcome me and been generous with his time. When I have been lucky enough to visit his studio, he is always excited about some new project, direction, experiment. I find that quality of perpetual curiosity, coupled with deep knowledge of art history, to be what makes his work so compelling. Regardless of whether it is a quick study or a large, sustained painting, his work always has a quality of freshness and surprise, and a love of the materiality and mystery of paint itself.