“Our work has been influenced by everything and will continue to be.  The focus has been to offer a set of concepts and design properties as an applicable genre called Rhythmism.  We have successfully experimented with this innovation in fine and commercial art applications. Rhythmism and other practices like it will prove to be the future of design and art.  The visual arts are overdue for   growth in its application and dialogue about itself. Meanwhile I have enjoyed our work.”

Onli is a creative artist whose career has touched upon a variety of disciplines in fine and applied visual art. He has been an art therapist, educator, and illustrator. He has also distinguished himself in painting, drawing, illustration, publishing, fashion, and multimedia production. This includes an extensive exhibition and publication record.  He is known for having coined the term Rhythmistic to interpret his stylizations which fuse primitive and futuristic concepts. This was manifested with several solo exhibitions at Chicago’s  Younger Gallery during that prolific period. Onli earned a BFA and MAAT from the elite School of the Art Institute of Chicago which included studies in Paris France at the Sorbonne and the Centre Pompidou.  He has work in the collections of  The Cool Globes Public Art Exhibition, The Chicago Children’s Museum, The Dusable Museum, The Johnson Publishing Company, along with freelance illustrations for Playboy, Chicago magazine, the Rolling Stones, McDonalds, Motown, MODE Avant Garde Magazine, the Paris Metro Magazine, and Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.

He has received many awards including Honorable Mention in the Salon Show at the Munster Center for Visual and Performing Art and the Prix Arts Electronica, a Laureate in the Concours des Dessin with the Foyer Internationale Accueil de Paris.  Onli is a regular Visiting Artist at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a three time solo exhibitor at the ETA Creative Arts Foundation in Chicago. In 2006 during the ECBACC program at Temple University Onli received a Life Time Achievement Award for his work to bring positive diverse images to the world of Graphic Novels and Comic Books.

Recently he curated a major museum type exhibition featuring the visionary charts created by his late grandfather, the Rev. Samuel David Phillips, and Onli’s own Rhythmistic paintings.  This show was called, “An Artistic and Spiritual Legacy”and was presented at the Center for the Visual and Performing Arts in Munster Indiana. He was a regular participant n the School of the Art Institute’s annual Alumni fundraiser, Bare walls!   He taught at Columbia College and is an adjunctive Professor of Drawing at the Harold Washington College.

Onli published a book of Rhythmistic original artwork called “No Evils”.  This full color book combines his written musings about coping with evil along with his cosmic future primitive iconic artwork dealing with the same theme. This is a wonderful portal into the workings of his approach to blending concept, method, and expression which gives the curator, critic, and collector a way to embrace the potential of this movement. He is expanding his Rhythmistic concept by creating  paintings and drawings that are desirable to collectors and developers of all levels.  This includes consultations, furniture, fashions, metaphysical concepts, spiritual themes, and abstractions.  All of these are treated with some aspects of the Rhythmistic construct. This growing body of originals and prints offers a practical way for collectors to extend the pleasure and value of their collections. Onli’s work has attracted interest and application in educational, commercial, and fine art circles.