Phillip Townsend is the Curator of Art at Art Galleries at Black Studies (AGBS) at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art + Art History specializing in modern and contemporary art of the African Diaspora, focusing on the politics of identity and representational strategies of BIPOC artists. He received his M.A. in Art History from UT-Austin (2016) and his B.A. in Art History from The University of South Florida (2014).

As a founding member of the Austin-based curatorial collective, Neon Queen Collective, Phillip co-curated Notes on Sugar: The Work of María Magdalena Campos–Pons (2018) at the Christian Green Gallery and Like the Lonely Traveler: Video Works by María Magdalena Campos–Pons (2018) at the Visual Arts Center. Phillip also co-curated Charles White: Celebrating the Gordon Gift (2019), an exhibition presented by the Blanton Museum in partnership with African and African Diaspora Studies (AADS) and the Art Galleries at Black Studies (AGBS) at The University of Texas at Austin. He contributed several essays for the exhibition catalog Charles White: Celebrating the Gordon Gift (UT Press) and the forthcoming catalog María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold (Getty Publications). At AGBS, he recently curated Wura-Natasha Ogunji: earth, body, spirit and Melvin Edwards: WIRE(D) + CHAIN(ED), a major exhibition of work by Melvin Edwards, a Houston native and pioneer in the history of African American art and sculpture.