It occurred to me this morning that it's been a while since the District has heard from Ian Whitmore, a painter I came to greatly appreciate after his remarkable debut at Fusebox earlier this year. It turns out he'll be showing again at Fusebox beginning January 8. At the risk of a premature judgment, I think Whitmore is poised to claim the title of the District's smartest painter.
Ian Whitmore, Doris, 2003
Ian Whitmore, Mahler(ish), 2003
Of course he's 25. I have to get to work.
Posted by: R™ at December 29, 2004 2:42 PMI'm curious. Why is this work so smart?
Posted by: matty at December 29, 2004 3:22 PMI've been looking and appreciating his work for a couple of years now. I picked him for my top 10 exhibits of 2004.
I agree with your assessment of his work!
Posted by: Lenny at December 29, 2004 8:46 PMMatty:
Because there's red shit all over Doris' portrait, and Mahler appears to be in the midst of an earhole violation by a flamingo. Please!
Posted by: norbizness at December 30, 2004 2:04 PMNorbizness basically has the thrust of it. I also agree with a lot of what Tyler Green has to say about him (I read the same thing into Whitmore's Mahler connection) in that link (scroll a ways).
Basically, I see Whitmore as justaposing the deductive process of portraiture painting with the inductive approach of abstract expressionism, so the work is really tackling painting as a process. So, what Norbizness said. I'll be writing more about his work I'm sure after his show in a week or two.
Posted by: Kriston at December 30, 2004 4:07 PMHmm...so it's kind of like a novel about the process of writing novels? A If on Winter's Night..., if you will?
Posted by: matty at December 30, 2004 6:13 PMThose images come from http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/green/green3-17-04.asp, where I discussed Whitmore last year. I absolutely agree on smart. (Obviously.)
Posted by: Tyler Green at January 4, 2005 10:02 AMWhoops -- I meant the next paragraph to say this but I hit the wrong 'enter' button: If you want to know why those images are so foggy, check out MAN.
Posted by: Tyler Green at January 4, 2005 10:03 AM