Philip Sager is a San Francisco–based visual artist whose work uses photography and public engagement to explore emotional fragility, loss, and the layered nature of perception. He investigates how the brain constructs meaning from visual experience-filtering, simplifying, and at times distorting what we see, so that perception becomes both recognition and self-editing. Informed by subconscious memory and metaphor, his images reflect the fractured and often contradictory texture of emotional life.

Trained as a cardiologist, Sager brings a clinical sensitivity to his visual practice. Years of interpreting X-rays and fluoroscopy- reading two-dimensional shadows to understand three-dimensional anatomy- sharpened his awareness of ambiguity, partial information, and the subtle traces that suggest what lies beneath the surface.

Sager studied photography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, and the Apeiron Workshops. He presented Fragmented Memories and related work in a solo exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Photography. His recently completed project Family Frames was a Critical Mass Top 200 Finalist in 2025.