ABOVE IS THE artwork titled, “Secret Identity — Rachel and Pipes” by Carol Phillips. Works by Phillips will be featured in the winter art exhibit at the Bay College main campus in Escanaba.

ESCANABA — Bay College will have its winter art exhibit, “Secret Identity,” featuring the works of Carol Phillips, on display in the Besse Gallery on the Bay College main campus through Feb. 24.

A talk by the artist will be take place via Zoom at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27.

Go to https://baycollege.zoom.us/j/94794887318?pwd=Ui9tdy9VWUMxSUdpbHFrQ2p1VmxiZz09.

Phillips began her art education at the University of Idaho. She continued her studies at the Sun Valley Center for the arts and humanities, a studio school specifically for clay in Sun Valley, Idaho. She later finished her bachelor of fine arts degree with an emphasis in ceramics at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she lived for 15 years working as a chef and later with commercial photographers as a food stylist.

In 2002, Phillips moved with her husband to Marquette. At Northern Michigan University, she earned a certification in art education and now teaches art at Powell Township School in Big Bay, a small school of 40 students in kindergarten through eighth grades. She is the curator of visual art for the city of Marquette’s gallery venues and is director of a nonprofit organization for the art enrichment of rural children, Liberty Children’s Art Project.

Although beginning her studio art practice in clay, she now primarily works as an oil painter using various surfaces, including clay.

“I began my work as an artist in the area of ceramics with wheel thrown and hand-built forms, both functional and nonfunctional. These organic forms with their continuous line have found their way into my paintings and despite an occasional effort to expel them, are stubbornly dominate,” she said.

“Concerning color, the saturated hues found in my work are influenced by a love of folk art, outsider art and the use of color in early 21st century functional ceramics such as Fiesta Ware and the ceramic work of Russel Wright. I recall from a young age being very disappointed when my paint-by-number sets had only one brilliant color to be applied to a tiny area amidst masses of brown and gray. In this way, vivid color has always been my preference.

“In this recent series titled ‘Secret Identity,’ I’m experimenting with that narrative in the classic genre of portraiture and human expression. In these visual biographies of women I know, who all live in the same small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I’m looking for a glimpse of not-so-obvious traits, searching out clues about their personality that isn’t always apparent.”

For more information on Bay College, go to www.baycollege.edu.