I WANT TO SEE
An exhibition of artworks by Lucianna Whittle,
on display at The Pie Factory Margate, 12th - 16th May 2017
I Want To See126 x 163cm
Oil paint and pencil on Arches Huile 300gsm oil painting paper
I Want To See is an exhibition of paintings made in the last 12 months after a period of significant personal upheaval, and on show in The Pie Factory Margate in May 2017.
In my experience, when we come out of a challenging time and find we have grown through something, we are looking at our familiar world but with different eyes. It’s a bit like how memories can be rewritten when heard from someone else’s perspective. Or like that queer feeling just after someone you have known has died when you look at everything as if you don’t know it and can’t fathom why it ever held meaning for you. There’s a vivid sharpening of the senses after giving birth when you really take a proper look at the world your baby has been born into. But it doesn’t have to take birth or death to bring us more expansively into the present moment. It is the artist’s job to stand a fraction apart from the everyday, and with excruciating sensitivity, to represent what is seen from that outer perspective.
I feel that I can be most eloquent when I am painting on a large scale. It feels more like I can reach inside the canvas to dig out the painting that is in there. I can explore the surface with my eyes and my hands - it fills my field of vision. It is vulnerable and exposing to paint big. It is giving power to what might happen and being game to see what comes of it.
Generally, perhaps controversially, I paint straight from the tube. Traditional colours, such as Crimson Alizarin, Cadmium Yellow and Phthalo Blue feel so pure to me, that as an abstract painter I can instantly get that hit of pigment to behave, represent and react according to the story I’m telling. Some of that immediacy is evident in the drips which are a mixture of incidental and deliberate. The composition is fluid until it settles into a form where I feel it can ‘rest’. The paper or canvas has to withstand being scraped back and layered over, sometimes four or five times. But nothing hidden is lost, for it has shown me where to look.
The catalogue is now available here.
In my experience, when we come out of a challenging time and find we have grown through something, we are looking at our familiar world but with different eyes. It’s a bit like how memories can be rewritten when heard from someone else’s perspective. Or like that queer feeling just after someone you have known has died when you look at everything as if you don’t know it and can’t fathom why it ever held meaning for you. There’s a vivid sharpening of the senses after giving birth when you really take a proper look at the world your baby has been born into. But it doesn’t have to take birth or death to bring us more expansively into the present moment. It is the artist’s job to stand a fraction apart from the everyday, and with excruciating sensitivity, to represent what is seen from that outer perspective.
I feel that I can be most eloquent when I am painting on a large scale. It feels more like I can reach inside the canvas to dig out the painting that is in there. I can explore the surface with my eyes and my hands - it fills my field of vision. It is vulnerable and exposing to paint big. It is giving power to what might happen and being game to see what comes of it.
Generally, perhaps controversially, I paint straight from the tube. Traditional colours, such as Crimson Alizarin, Cadmium Yellow and Phthalo Blue feel so pure to me, that as an abstract painter I can instantly get that hit of pigment to behave, represent and react according to the story I’m telling. Some of that immediacy is evident in the drips which are a mixture of incidental and deliberate. The composition is fluid until it settles into a form where I feel it can ‘rest’. The paper or canvas has to withstand being scraped back and layered over, sometimes four or five times. But nothing hidden is lost, for it has shown me where to look.
The catalogue is now available here.
By The Gentle Grace
128 x 145cm Oil paint and pencil on Arches Huile 300gsm oil painting paper 
In Reverence and Fear
123 x 177cm Oil paint and pencil on Arches Huile 300gsm oil painting paper To break down my process, I suppose I could say firstly, after clearing my mind, I ask to be shown (I want to see). Then I look for the light and paint what I witness. Necessarily I have to paint through my blocks and watch as all my baggage creeps in, but then I can witness the two elements as they meld and transform and unify into my lesson. The vision given back. One painting closer to peace.
The more I paint, the more I can exercise that non-thinking part of me and strengthen it, learn to trust it and honour its power to teach me, transform me and above all… show me! I want to see! |
All These Miracles
131 x 211cm Oil paint and pencil on Arches Huile 300gsm oil painting paper 
I Call Upon
123 x 183cm Oil paint and pencil on Arches Huile 300gsm oil painting paper |
Into Your Presence
140 x 180cm Oil on Canvas |
Be You The Sun
140 x 180cm Oil on Canvas |
In this series of paintings, I portray the moment of revelation in the flux of interplay between darkness and light...
|
Untitled #1
70 x 90cm Oil on canvas |
Untitled #2
70 x 90cm Oil on canvas |
Untitled #3
76 x 102cm Oil on canvas |
Untitled #4
76 x 102cm Oil on canvas |
Untitled #5
76 x 102cm Oil on canvas |
Lo
5x7cm Oil on Arches Huile 300gsm Oil Painting Paper, framed |
Hark
5x7cm Oil on Arches Huile 300gsm Oil Painting Paper, framed |
Inner
5x7cm Oil on Arches Huile 300gsm Oil Painting Paper, framed |
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lucianna Whittle is an English artist in Abstract Expressionism, currently based in Hove, Brighton.
"My impulse to paint is to do with giving expression to that which is only partially known and for the alchemy of painting to reveal the truth of what was just glimpsed fleetingly, maybe a vision or connection.
Using a process of layering, blending and filtering appearances, I see my paintings as relics of the journey that brought them into being. I use the relationship of light with darker bodies of paint to tease out emotional and spiritual landscapes which are at once personal and universal.
I paint primarily to contribute to the discourse of fine art which I love and try to honour in my own practice. I'm particularly inspired by the drive of the abstract expressionists and believe in their pure motives of making art to elevate and enliven us, whilst acknowledging our collective darkness. In the moment of encounter with the art work, we are brought back to the essence of our being."
EDUCATION
MA Cultural & Critical Theory, University of Brighton, 2003 - Distinction
Thesis: Is the Aesthetic Experience Revelatory of an Exclusive Modality of Truth?
BA Fine Art Painting, Bath Spa University, 2001
PRIZES
Finalist in National Open Art Competition, 2009
Finalist in Brighton Festival Visual Arts Prize, 2005
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2016 - Super 8 Open House, Artists Open House Trail, Brighton
2015 - Awakenings, open call group exhibition, Chichester Community Arts Centre
2012-2015 - Career break to have children
2012 - Solo show at Friese Greene Gallery, Brighton
2010 - Seekings, Group Exhibition, Brighton Media Centre
2005-2010 - Open Studio exhibitions at Studio 106 as part of Brighton Festival
2004 - Art in Mind, Brick Lane Gallery, London
2002 - Group Exhibition, Walcott Chapel, Bath
"My impulse to paint is to do with giving expression to that which is only partially known and for the alchemy of painting to reveal the truth of what was just glimpsed fleetingly, maybe a vision or connection.
Using a process of layering, blending and filtering appearances, I see my paintings as relics of the journey that brought them into being. I use the relationship of light with darker bodies of paint to tease out emotional and spiritual landscapes which are at once personal and universal.
I paint primarily to contribute to the discourse of fine art which I love and try to honour in my own practice. I'm particularly inspired by the drive of the abstract expressionists and believe in their pure motives of making art to elevate and enliven us, whilst acknowledging our collective darkness. In the moment of encounter with the art work, we are brought back to the essence of our being."
EDUCATION
MA Cultural & Critical Theory, University of Brighton, 2003 - Distinction
Thesis: Is the Aesthetic Experience Revelatory of an Exclusive Modality of Truth?
BA Fine Art Painting, Bath Spa University, 2001
PRIZES
Finalist in National Open Art Competition, 2009
Finalist in Brighton Festival Visual Arts Prize, 2005
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2016 - Super 8 Open House, Artists Open House Trail, Brighton
2015 - Awakenings, open call group exhibition, Chichester Community Arts Centre
2012-2015 - Career break to have children
2012 - Solo show at Friese Greene Gallery, Brighton
2010 - Seekings, Group Exhibition, Brighton Media Centre
2005-2010 - Open Studio exhibitions at Studio 106 as part of Brighton Festival
2004 - Art in Mind, Brick Lane Gallery, London
2002 - Group Exhibition, Walcott Chapel, Bath
SEE MORE...
See the artist's website for details of the current exhibition on show now: www.luciannawhittle.com