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BIO

“When I walk in the woods,” says American artist Philip Rostek, “I see saints and angels everywhere... in the gnarly arrangements of bark and moss, in all the bacteria and stuff.”  During a 40-year career as a fine artist, Rostek has collected a lot of “stuff,” some of which waits for years until he incorporates it, cobwebs and all, into his work.  He enters a spiritual world by creating with humble materials, such as crumpled paper napkins and industrial tar.  His work has been exhibited in a number of one-man and group shows in the US, Poland, Austria, Brazil, Italy, and France.

Rostek’s art bubbles from a mystical world of saints and angels discovered during boyhood visits to Catholic Church.  There, with his family, he was immersed in the theatre, music and poetry of the Latin Mass, and all the beautiful imagery involved.  Ritualized scenes like the lilac-covered “May Altars” and illuminated Christmas Nativity displays were indelibly etched onto Rostek’s persona.  As an adult, his viewpoint shifted to a more secular philosophy, but early religious experience plays prominently in Rostek’s work, informing his creative pilgrimage through low-tech art, high-tech art, poetry, performance, philosophy and Duchampian alter egos, until emerging as a fine artist of simple, yet mythical, paintings and sculptures. 

Born in Pittsburgh in 1949, Rostek started drawing at age 5.  His family’s East European heritage also instilled a great love of music.  He showed talent in both art forms and was encouraged by his parents.  As an adult Rostek chose visual art, but his love for music continues as a counterpoint, evident from his early work with sound to current paintings of musical heroes Chopin and Liszt.

At age 18, Rostek became an art student at Penn State University, graduating with a BFA in 1971.  He immediately enrolled as an MFA student at Carnegie Mellon University where he spent the first year groping for an artistic path.  A summer of deep introspection led to deep artistic revelation.  Rostek began his second year at CMU transformed.  He made a theatrical entrance, dressed in formal tuxedo, tie and tails, assuming the persona of an artist whose art and life are inseparable.  “The Man Who Wore Tails” became the first of Rostek’s artistic alter egos and marked the beginning of his life as a serious artist.  Though a student of fine art, he ironically wore the uniform of a concert musician and didn’t paint at all.  Instead, he created watercolor and ink drawings, allowing the paper to absorb paint and ink with an intention beyond his control.  He began to incorporate found objects (“remnants”) into his work.  The tuxedo itself created opportunities for art – photography, performance, and conceptual work.  “It was a complete integration of art and life,” he says.

Rostek got married in 1975 to Marcia whom he met at CMU.  Art has been inseparable from their relationship, and in time they would eventually collaborate on art projects, most notably in performance at a deserted Sardinian monastery.  In the mid-1970s, however, Rostek was faced with the reality of earning a living in a quickly changing world.  He took a full-time job in the Visual Merchandising Department at Kaufman’s Department store in Pittsburgh which left little time for painting, but just enough time for writing  -- and there was plenty to inspire him: CB radios; mail art; the Fluxus art movement; and Bruce Breland, one of his former CMU professors.

“The Man Who Wore Tails” took his final bow and turned to exit as Rostek’s next alter ego appeared.  “The Art Doctor” wrote a series of art-related articles in Pittsburgh’s “Market Square Newspaper” that addressed regional issues from a global perspective.  In true Rostek style, he engaged the public in discussion wider than what is normally covered in art criticism.  “The Art Doctor” was profoundly influenced by the writings of Marshall McLuhan whose deeper role in Rostek’s journey would soon be revealed.  At this time, Rostek’s wife Marcia also introduced a potent influence -- buying him a treasured edition of “Fioretti” -- “The Little Flowers” of St. Francis.  Rostek, McLuhan and St. Francis were about to collide with a profound technological advance – the computer.

In the 1980s, computers were becoming a household reality and Rostek foresaw the potential for human isolation in this computer era.  He envisioned a world of “discarnate man” as described by McLuhan.  “Discarnate man” is a familiar character in today’s world.  He lives in a computer screen, sorting through a web of communications, floating without a core mythology to anchor him.  Rostek questioned how spirituality could possibly survive in this new computer era.  Happily, through reading Marcia’s gift of “Fioretti,” he discovered a hero who had some real answers -- St. Francis.  Reading about St. Francis caused a flood of realizations.  Among them was Rostek’s surprising reaction to neo-expressionism in art – a fresh take on lyrical painting.  “It was the Catholicism of St. Francis that connected me with my own childhood memories,” he says.  “The artwork brought me full-circle through history and my discovery of St. Francis was the glue.”  “The Art Doctor” became part of Rostek’s history, and a new persona emerged.

Adopting the high-Gothic sensibility of St. Francis, Rostek became a 20th century troubadour – literally – donning a friar’s robe at parties and for performances of his work as “phriar phil.”  He became a medieval minstrel, a teller of stories.  While he painted lyrically, he also explored the double-entendre and became an artistic “fryer.”  Exhibits included frying pans of burned organic and non-organic remnants.  At last, Rostek was on his path as a painter of pictorial themes that incorporated tar (“a remnant of the mechanical age”), twigs, thorns, gold leaf, and discarded ivory from old pianos.  Like a medieval troubadour, he was saving things he appreciated as precious.

Logically, among these precious remnants was the knowledge Rostek had acquired over the years.  In 2001, he became a Professor of Art at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA where he continues to teach drawing and painting.  This continuity connects with his early childhood when he was called “Phyd” by his family and their friends. Today, “Phyd” considers himself to be “Phydan," a twist Rostek added that illustrates his European sensibility as well as a sense of alter ego that informs his ever-evolving awareness of self.

“The Man Who Wore Tails,” “The Art Doctor,” “phriar phil” and “ Phydan’ ” continue to fuel an expansive approach to art.  Dada, theatricality, symbolism, and pictorial realization where “removal” trumps the imposition of intent, are all compatible in Rostek’s interpretation of Franciscan sensibility.  His art is simultaneously earthbound and in ecstatic flight, tethered to the life and deeds of Francis, a mystic for the common man.  Philip Rostek paints stories... stories of nature, humanity, spirituality, and philosophy.  He invites us into dreamy, utopian landscapes where mystical heroes dwell.

Contact:
Philip Rostek
609 Ivy Street
Pittsburgh, PA  15232
412-441-9205
philip@philiprostek.com
philiprostek.com