AN OLD SOUL since birth and young only by circumstance, Phoebe Collins has probably spent more time knitting and listening to punk rock than you. An artist by both choice and genetics, her body of work includes sound, image, text, and performance.
She is an alumna of Smith College (Northampton, MA), where she earned a B.A. in Studio Art with a minor in Ancient Studies. Aside from her undergraduate work, she has also studied in programs at the Cooper Union (New York, NY) and DuCret School of Art (Plainfield, NJ). Currently, she lives and works in New Jersey.
Phoebe's portfolio spans a variety of media but centers around printmaking, touching on themes of the body, the sense of self, and ephemerality. She explores the way that smaller parts meet to make a larger whole, as well as the possibility of making art in multiples. Her process relies upon an ebb and flow between a diligently cultivated sense of patience and a tendency to get swept away by new media. She has shown work in group, solo, and online exhibitions, but she might be best known for disrupting New England college campuses with ambiguous conceptual art.
As a DJ for WOZQ, Phoebe brought new wave, goth, and punk to the airwaves of the Pioneer Valley and now brings those influences to her own music. Her production style combines dark synths and drum machines with textured vocal layering, and her voice has been compared to both Debbie Harry of Blondie and the sound of a haunted phonograph. Her debut LP, “It’s not enough to be my own body. It’s not enough to know you in dreams,” was released in May 2023, and has since graced the independent airwaves thanks to DJs across the country.
Her plans for 2024 include new collaborations, experiments with animation, and completing the work left unfinished by a brief rendevous with grad school. Stay tuned for whatever is coming next.
We are adrift and in search of a long middle. Making is the only thing that helps.