Looking Up Looking Out

A new exhibit by visual artist, Jeffrey Whittle May 3-30. Meet the artist at opening reception on First Friday at Macon Arts Gallery from 5-8 pm with light refreshments. Free and open to the public. Reception sponsored by Spa Medical, Vein Specialists of the South and Rosenberg Financial.

BIO Jeffrey Whittle is an artist, educator, and curator living in Athens, Georgia. He received his MFA in Painting from Cornell University and his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Whittle has been the recipient of numerous artist’s grants, awards. and residencies including New York, Maine, Oregon, Vermont, Spain and Italy. He recently he was selected 100 UNDER 100: The New Superstars of Southern Art by Oxford American Magazine. He teaches studio courses at the University of Georgia and at Agnes Scott College.

Artist’s Statement: LOOKING UP<>LOOKING OUT

Painting is a type of active daydreaming: mixing colors, composing a picture, deciding what to put in and what to leave out, while ruminating about the past, the cosmos, and the continuum of time. These paintings explore daydreams of beauty, love, and twins over the expanse of time. By juxtaposing the ephemeral (flowering plants) with the infinite (star-scapes), I can represent both daytime and nighttime simultaneously. I like the idea of twins as represented in the form of floating turtles, still life objects, disembodied blossoms, or postcards from Italy. I try to find the balance between exercising my will and going with the flow of the unknown. Several of the paintings in this exhibition were completed in my studio while I listened to podcasts about astrophysics or the music of the Flaming Lips. These influences led me to explore the world inside each idea: another person, a flower, a tomatillo, etc., set against a grounding backdrop of the 1960s and ’70s patterns or starscapes that inspire me. Altered maps are present in some works; like paintings, maps create a world parallel to our own. That is my intention: to create a painted world that runs alongside our inhabited one, where imagination and creativity are cultivated and allowed to blossom. Finally, I am compelled to render yoga poses that I myself cannot master.