Tools As Art: The Hechinger Collection

Collection Database

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

← →

Phyllis Yes, Paint Can with Brush, 1981
mixed media with paint
9 x 11 in.

Born in Redwing, Minnesota, in 1941, Phyllis Yes received an M.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1969 and a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1978. Although primarily a painter, Yes also makes sculptures and videos. She has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant and an Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship. Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States, Japan, and South America. She is a professor of art and Dean of Arts and Humanities at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon. Yes's work addresses the issues of femininity and gender identification. She uses tools to symbolize masculinity in her paintings and objects, then sabotages them by overlaying them with webs of lacy patterns and motifs traditionally thought of as feminine. Yes once gave a lace paint job to a Porsche, and in the 1980s she "decorated" a variety of tools with her floral and lace patterns. In a series of paintings, "Mixed Metaphors," Yes depicted detailed table settings where tools replaced silverware, thus contrasting men's and women's traditional family roles.