George Gallery
This selection of paintings is available exclusively through George Gallery, where I am a resident artist.
https://www.georgegallery.co.uk/luciannawhittle
31 Duke Street Brighton BN1 1AG
@georgegallerycollective
Eden
Oil on canvas, 160x200cm
The nature of this painting is that of a charged field. It slips between creativity and destruction, honouring both as vital counterparts. The loosely rendered motifs should feel disorientating but that becomes part of the appeal. Details invite the eye to alight only to laugh at its attempt to anchor by immediately being upended again by the motion of the next passage. Eden is some kind of ride that rewards participation.
Kite Strings
Oil on canvas, 140x180cm
If the grand idea of this painting is the interdependency of freedom and containment, then the micro expression of that is the gaze up at the kite dancing (being thrown?) on currents of air - so free it can afford to forget the strings tethering it to the hand, the ground. One energetic state makes the other possible. Is it tension or liberation? The negotiation for immanence runs through the painting, just as the air giving shape to the movement is every bit as much the subject.
Songstress
Oil on canvas, 122x152cm
It began like singing underwater, patterned but murky. Dwelling deep and spiralling, diffusing, merging almost to the point of losing form. Then the melody broke free: out of breath with a forced surge up beyond the surface. Finally, the lungs could catch a bit of light, differentiate from the origins. The moody baritone versus the spritely pink bid for daylight. The could have journeyed apart forever were it not for the declarative stamp, the stave - like arms. Locating the action. Calling it song.
Pollinator
Oil on canvas, 122x152cm, SOLD
All of my paintings are abstract and come from remaining steadily curious as the painting reveals itself to me. Pollinator was loosely inspired by the idea of paradise and the continual motion of nature in all its forms. The painting grew in momentum and it seemed as though each time I thought it was nearing completion, another element would almost dance into the composition. I relented into the idea that this was a painting resolutely of its own nature.
Horizons
Oil on canvas, 122x152cm, SOLD
There is a dance. When we imagine we are heading towards a destination but along the way, the horizon shape-shifts. It wants to play and it invites us forward to follow its lead. Paths are malleable, sometimes transient; they shimmer, hover, beckon, then duck out of view. 'Horizons' captures the motion of pursuit, but in a spirit of being lightly tethered. It carries an attitude of 'let's play here, let's see where this goes', mindful of the consistency of change.
Chandelier
Oil on canvas, 122x152cm, SOLD
What this painting revealed to me, is that we are glittering constellations of all the parts, moments and people that make up who we are. Contrary to the identity movement that seeks for definition and autonomy of self-concept, this painting tells me of a self held more loosely. A chandelier has a name as a whole, but it is made up of the many interfaces between the light and the glass. The chandelier manages to be both stately and fluid. Here, the eye of the viewer is enticed to continual motion because it is the passage of wandering through the spaces and between the strands and behind the membranes that completes the painting. The light must weave and dance. The viewer must participate, while holding the entirety. It says things are always changing but that they change is the fact that doesn't end. Chandelier.
Spring Reunion
Oil on canvas, 122x152cm, £2495
I had a deep sensation that the blossoms were overjoyed to touch the sky; that the trees delighted in being restored to greenness; that branches were striving to fill their allotted space in the sky, like fingers slipping into gloves. All these bodies inhabiting their correct time and living out their essential nature. There was something unnameable about the presence of that energy, but for me, this painting speaks of that axis from yearning to consummation.