Born Napier 1971. Studied Visual Art and Design at Hawkes Bay Polytecnic followed by a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree (painting) at Otago School of Art, achieving the schools prestigious painting award in 1996 Philip has worked in both the film and museum / art gallery industries. He has exhibited regularly since 1990 in various solo, group and selected shows. He was the recipient of the Mary Vigor Brown Trust Prize in 1993 and 2006, and also the recipient in 1995 of the Derivan Art Spectrum Sponsorship Award. In 2008 Philip was a finalist in the Anthony Harper Award, selected by Justin Paton His work is held in private and corporate collections in New Zealand, France and the USA. Bakers painting practice tends toward the pragmatic, the physical and aesthetic activity of organising paint. He connects with the materials loose, fluid logic and its innate tendency toward composition and imagery. “ I want to provoke an authenticity of place which is undermined by the actuality of that place being an entirely painted fiction.”