Philip Rostek
Assistant Professor of Art
rostek@setonhill.edu

Education
1971 BFA Pennsylvania State University
1973 MFA Carnegie Mellon University

On Education
I teach Drawing and Painting. My experience is continually informed by recollections of my own past. At Penn State my drawings were exhibited in the National Collegiate Drawing Competition. My paintings received the Zollar Award, a merit award given to the most promising junior student. I remember those experiences vividly. I see those dreams and potentials in my own students now and for me it is with an unfailing sense of wonder that my education continues.
I immediately continued my studies at Carnegie Mellon University. I worked with Bruce Breland and Robert Lepper. Both men influence me to this day. My graduate thesis Tailormades was a rebellion of sorts. I went “formal” by going through art school wearing white tie and tails every day. I said I was defining the three R’s of Art, (Ritual, Remnants, and Reminiscing) by documenting my autobiographical life through a collection of photographs, objects, and drawings. John Cage, Marshall McLuhan’s writings, Mr. Lepper’s Retrospective course, Bruce Breland’s sense of art and life and how they relate, and my own childhood penchant for play-acting influenced me. Somehow a reliance on persona continues to be important to me. I persist in the invention of what might be called a kind of Duchampian alter ego. I’ve gone through various characters until I have ended up as the present me, Phriar Phil. It is, perhaps, his exploits that I will offer to you in what follows. Also, because this has been my experience, I believe that teachers of expressive genres do best when they are midwives i.e. when they are focused on the development of each individual’s uniqueness.

One Person Exhibitions
1998 Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts, St Bonaventure University, New York.
1996 The Memorare, Seton Hill University, Greensburg, Pa.
1988 Paradigm Changes, Mellon Galleries, Carlow College, Pittsburgh.
1984 The Pittsburgh Plan for Art.
1982 The Art Doctor’s Polaroids, Wiebe Gallery, Pittsburgh.
1981 Mendelson Gallery, Pittsburgh.

Group Exhibitions
2001 Tribes Gallery, New York City.
2000 Andy Warhol Museum, Warhol gravesite from Essay by Robert Lepper and Phil Rostek
Museum without Walls, http://www.artmuseum.net
Jesus 2000 Exhibition, Belleville, Illinois.
Spirituality at the Millennium, Harlan Gallery, Seton Hill College, Greensburg, Pa.
1996 The Mind Island of Daxonia, Ars Electronica, Austria, Digital Art Exchange, (DAX).
Past Time, The Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh.
Harlan Gallery, Seton Hill College, Greensburg, Pa.
1995 The Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio.
1994 The First Pittsburgh Biennial, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.
1993 Arts on Thirty, Howard Heinz and Vira L. Heinz Endowments, Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh x 7, Le Jongleur de Dieu, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.
1991 Reflux, XXI Bienal do Sao Paulo, Brazil. Telematic performance organized by A. Matuk.
The Labyrinth, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Collaborative exhibition co-organized with Matt
Wrbican, funded by GPIA, The Painted Bride, Philadelphia.
1990 Dakar d’Accord, collaborative slowscan tv exchange, CMU, Pittsburgh and Senegal. (DAX).
1989 Toxic Paradise, performance and installation, Fusion Arts, Diagonale Gallerie, Paris.
1987 Il Serpente di Pietra, performance organized by Plexus, Sa Itria, Sardinia, Italy.
1986 Network Planetario / Laboratorio Ubique, La Biennale de Venezia, Sstv, fax and text exchange,
International Pavilion of Art and Science, Venice, Italy. (DAX).
1985 The Order of St. Francis, video installation, Now Gallery, New York City.
1983 La Plissure du Texte, Electra ’83, telematic text exchange on ARTEX, organized by Roy Ascot,
La Musee d’Art de la Ville de Paris. (DAX).


Public Lectures
2001 Unbearables, poetry reading, Cooper Union, New York City.
1998 Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts, St. Bonaventure University, New York.
1996 The Memorare, Seton Hill Parlors, Greensburg, Pa.