Tuesday, January 29, 2008 6:35 PM CST
Tarble Arts Center presents work by landscape artist
By the JG/T-C
editorial@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — New approaches to landscape painting are presented in the exhibition titled “Ben Whitehouse: Revolution,” now on display at the Tarble Arts Center, Eastern Illinois University.
The exhibition will continue through Feb. 24 in the Tarble’s main galleries. Included are paintings on canvas and on panels, and videos of the landscape.
Whitehouse will be at the Tarble Arts Center at 7 p.m. Tuesday to talk about his art. Admission is free and the public is invited. An informal reception will follow the talk.
The exhibition and talk are part of the Tarble’s Contemporary Currents series, co-sponsored with the EIU Art Department and partially funded by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
Whitehouse has devoted his career to exploring ways to evoke an authentic landscape experience through his art. Whitehouse does most of his painting on site, outdoors — what artists call plein air study. This tradition dates back to the French Impressionists and has been adopted by many artists since (including 20th-century Charleston artist Paul T. Sargent).
True to the tradition, Whitehouse has transported himself and his equipment to sites in all weather and all seasons to do his painting.
States Chicago art curator and gallery director John Brunetti: “Ben Whitehouse’s passion for submerging himself … in the all-encompassing experience of the natural landscape is captured by a photograph of the artist … standing knee-deep in a river of the Chicago Botanic Garden with his easel, also in the water, in front of him in the mid-day sun. I thought it was one of those wonderfully ‘staged’ photographs for the purposes of developing press interest.
“As time has gone by and I have come to know ... the artist and his methods I realized that … nothing, absolutely nothing, is ever ‘staged’ for the purpose of a romantic effect because the truth of the natural world, according to the artist, does not require enhancement.”
Since receiving a master of fine arts degree from the University of Chicago in 1991, Whitehouse has been obsessed with the way form in the landscape emerges and dissolves over time due to changes in light and weather. He often watches the subjects of his paintings for days, observing and recording incremental changes and transitions in the colors and qualities of light.
Whitehouse has stated that his work is a reaction to the Impressionists’ art, particularly Claude Monet’s Rouen series, and Whitehouse sees his art as a contemporary extension of their art.
The new series of works developed over the past few years, titled “Revolution,” “Watch” and “Horizons,” reflect Whitehouse’s growing desire to account for the incremental transitions of light through increasingly complex conceptual practices that expand the subject of landscape painting.
“Watch” is a series of painted works that record sky light shifts observed through the same fixed point in the landscape over time. “Horizons” has to do with the color of and relationship between light from the sky reflected on bodies of water.
In addition to works composed of individually painted elements that depict changing qualities and colors of light, the Tarble exhibition also includes two videos presented on large monitors. The works of “Revolution” are 24 hours long and are viewed in real time (the time of day the viewer is looking at either video is the same time of day being shown in the video). Whitehouse spends more than 24 hours on location composing each video that unfolds before the viewer, with the incremental changes of light and sound.
Whitehouse is the son of a British documentary filmmaker and environmentalist.
Whitehouse is represented in Chicago by the Alfedena Gallery. His work has been exhibited at venues in Chicago, New York City, Washington, D.C., and London. In addition to the Tarble exhibition, Whitehouse’s art is currently on view at the Chicago Cultural Center and at the Los Angeles Art Show.
The Tarble Arts Center is located on Ninth Street at Cleveland Avenue on the EIU campus in Charleston. Open hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday; closed Mondays and Feb. 15. For information call 581-ARTS (-2787) or e-mail tarble@eiu.edu.
A division of the EIU College of Arts and Humanities, the Tarble is accredited by the American Association of Museums. The Tarble is funded in part by the Tarble Arts Center Fund/EIU Foundation, Tarble Arts membership contributions, and other program sponsors.
Add your comments
Not already registered?
Then click Here.
Comment policy:
JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.
In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.
We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.
No comment may contain:
* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.
If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.
|
|
CLICK TO ENLARGE
|
