Wallace Whitney’s work is marked by activated gestures, a considered palette and an ambitious use of scale to make paintings seemingly breathe. Building complex formal rhythms with dripped and spattered paint, Whitney’s canvases blend thick, organic brushstrokes with layered fields of color to assemble compositions that revel in the space between accident and intention. His practice exploits the generative possibilities of experimentation, incorporating unorthodox compositional strategies and unexpected methods of applying paint, in order to make motley grounds of tangled shapes that coalesce into precarious equilibrium.
Variously loose, dense, and deeply layered, Whitney’s paintings indulge in the process and materiality of painting. Whitney is known to work on many large canvases at the same time, in a way that leaves each of his paintings open to the influence of neighboring works. Such a process can account for certain compositional similarities between canvases produced at similar times, but stops short of providing a structural framework for developing compositions. Instead, Whitney broadens each painting along the lines of its own, proprietary logic, as he responds to the incremental changes of the work’s internal structure. Taken together, Whitney’s paintings synthesize diverse elements of felt daily life and various abstract painting languages to create complex compositions that embodies his own vision.
Education
MFA Painting, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College,
2018 Wallace Whitney: Patience Gift, Soloway, New York, USA
Braided Sky, Ceysson & Bénétière, New York, USA
2016 Alight, Align, Galerie Bernard Ceysson, Saint Étienne, France
2014 WHAT, Galerie Bernard Ceysson, Geneva, Switzerland
2013 Contact High, American Contemporary, New York, USA
2012 The Feeling That Selects You, Galerie Bernard Ceysson, Paris, France
The Armory Show, Horton Gallery, New York, USA
2010 Dream Feed, Horton Gallery, New York, USA
2008 Wrong Mountain, Rowland Contemporary, Chicago, USA
2006 Rock House Paintings, David Krut Projects, New York, USA
2005 Solid Green, with Sam Martineau, David Krut Projects, New York, USA
2003 Formages, CANADA, New York, USA
Group shows(selection)
2018 Bushwick Rodeo, Horton Gallery, Dallas, USA
Summer of Love, Arts+Leisure, New York, USA
Paradise, Night Gallery, California, USA
10 Years in Luxembourg, Ceysson & Bénétière, Wandhaff, Luxembourg
2017 The First Ever & Only East Hampton Biennial, organisé par Woobie Bogus et Adrianne Rubinstein, The Barn, East Hampton, New York, USA
Combustible Cocktail, Ceysson & Bénétière (hors les murs), Sag Harbor, New York, USA
2016 Make Painting Great Again, CANADA, New York, USA
2015 Feed the Meter, curated by Wallace Whitney, Galerie Bernard Ceysson, Luxembourg
Special Guest, (Denis Castellas, Franck Chalendard, Joe Fyfe, Sadie Laska, Lauren Luloff, Alexander Nolan, Wallace Whitney) curated by Bernard Ceysson, Zürcher Gallery, New York, USA
2012 La Ligne Passée, Galerie Bernard Ceysson, Luxembourg
Dirty Messy Painting, Roos Arts, Rosendale, États-Unis
2011 Monkey Wrench, Horton Gallery, New York, USA
2010 Redi-Mix, curated by James Hyde, Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, New York, USA
2008 A.I.R. Biennial, Ewing Gallery of Art, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA
2007 Quiet Riot, March Gallery, New York, USA
2006 CANARICO, Galeria Comercial, San Juan, Puerto Rico
CANADA, Counter Gallery, London, United Kingdom
History Lesson Part Three, passerby space, curated by Monica Moran, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York, USA
Blender, curated by Cody Ryman, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York, USA
The Small Painting Show, Project Series: The General Store, The Ulrich Museum, Kansas City, USA
2005 New York's Finest, curated by Wallace and Brendan Cass, CANADA, New York, USA
Hunch and Flail, curated by Amy Sillman, Artists Space, New York, USA
2003 Protest for Triple Candie, Triple Candie, New York, USA
Clothing Project, Kunsthall Frederianum, Kassel, Germany
Split Dreams, New York Arts Gallery, New York, USA
2002 Fat Slice, It Can Change, San Francisco, USA
Blobs and Wiggles, Dots and Crustilations, The Work Space, New York, USA
2001 New Painting, CANADA, 359 Broadway, New York, USA
New Work From New York, Bacca Gallery, Berkeley, USA
Landscape, Bacca Gallery, Berkeley, USA
2000 Thesis Exhibition, Bard College Exhibition Center, Red Hook, USA
Bibliography
Bibliography (selection)
2015 Fitch, James, "Wallace Whitney Artist Talk March 11th 1pm Studio 2 Artbarn." March 11, 2015.
2013 "Why Sean Horton loves NADA Miami Beach." Artsy Editorial, November 29, 2013.
Sutton, Benjamin. "Driving Dynamism: Canada cofounders join forces." Artinfo, May 2013
2012 Russeth, Andrew. "To the Piers! Previewing the 2012 Armory Show". GalleristNY, March 7, 2012.
2011 Ferlito, Ash, "Interviez. Wallace Whitney : Optimistic Opposition." The Nicola Midnight St. Claire, June 10, 2011.
2010 Maine, Stephen. "The Big (Juicy) Apple: Three Current Shows of Abstract Painterliness." Artcritical, November 22, 2010.
Asfour, Nana. " Wallace Whitney, ' Dream Feed.' " Timeout New York, November 21, 2010.
"Critics' Picks: Painting." Time Out New York, October 10, 2010.
2008 Yood, James. "Wallace Whitney," Artforum, November 2008.
2006 Coomer, Martin. "CANADA." TimeOut London, April 11, 2006.
2005 Moyer, Carrie. "Not by Design: Hunch and Flail." Gay City News, July 21, 2005.
Smith, Roberta. "New York's Finest," The New York Times, May 22, 2005.
2002 Cotter, Holland. "Lower East Side, Where Witty Meets Gritty." The New York Times, November 15, 2002.
2001 Pozzi, Lucio. "Malati di Spiegazionite." Il Giornale Dell Arte, September 2001.
"Short List." The New Yorker, July 9, 2001 and July 21, 2001.
Publications
Monaural, with poems by Joel Felix, Answer Tag Press. 2007
