Phil Garrett is a painter and master printmaker whose work explores the natural world through expressive, layered imagery. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute after time in Hawaii with Gabor Peterdi, drawn to the Bay Area’s dynamic art scene of the 1970s. Influenced by artists such as Wayne Thiebaud and David Ireland, and deeply inspired by jazz and blues, Garrett developed a practice rooted in both spontaneity and craft.

He has collaborated with several notable print studios, including Winstone Press and Art Thomas Print Studio, and in 1998 founded King Snake Press in Greenville, SC. Over nearly two decades, he published monotypes for Southern artists and built a collection later gifted to the Morris Museum of Art. Since 2018, he has worked with Hand Graphics in Santa Fe, NM, and participated in the 2023 Santa Fe Monothon. Garrett now lives and works in the Landrum/Tryon area of North Carolina.

“My Work is informed by nature , a kind of mythical nature . The power of storms, the spiritual  quality of the elements , the beauty ,grace and ferocity of plants and animals…. Something greater than myself , something  I can’t comprehend . Painting and making monotypes is my search  for the mystery within the subject , within myself.” - Phil Garrett