Wendy White
Artist Statement 2008
Successful paintings to me maintain an awkward, muscular energy that threatens to fall apart at any time. I am a fan of uncomfortable anti-balance, no discernable control at all, and accidents that appear highly considered. When I am painting, I like to be consistently surprised by the combination of marks, and unsure of whether the composition holds together as a "painting" in any traditional sense. To this end, I alternate brushed-on marks with spray painted edges, globs and slashes, working out the composition directly on the canvas. I cluster broad marks made with a loaded brush, rarely using one smaller than two inches. I attack the canvas with a series of direct, semi-calculated gestures that I then build on intuitively, adjusting my speed and cadence to construct areas of levity and density. In the newest works, I use the stark white of the primed canvas as a well-lit void, a place where marks and edges fall away then reappear in the distance.
In concealing her virtuosity behind unglamorous color and an unsuave touch, White reveals a different order of virtuosity, deriving compelling effects from blunt, artless means and plumbing the bottomless dichotomies of structure and formlessness, reason and oblivion, scaffolding and swamp. Her palette includes rumbling, inflected blacks, chalky and electric tints and scarcely anything in between. And behind her congested compositions lies the promise of zooming, unbound space. (Stephen Maine, Art in America, February 2007) |