Whiting says her “whimsical paintings explore the subjective nature of our experience of what is real”. The exhibit will feature three oversized still life paintings, vividly toned and hyper-realistic with deconstructed and exuberant reflections. Whiting calls the reflections “portrayals of possibility, rather than conventional mirror images”.
Small representational paintings will accompany the large pieces. These works allow viewers to move between “actual” and impossibly “possible”— between consensus and contradiction — between abstraction and realism. The small canvases suggest daily experience on a human scale, while the larger canvases invite viewers to enter an impossible closeness to the subjects.
Whiting asks her viewers to consider Emily Dickinson’s poem, 641 (included below). Her interpretation of the poem is that “from a grand scale, small things are imperceptible, even irrelevant. Size determines the perspective of a view… intrinsic size determines “truth” from a particular perspective”.
641
Size circumscribes—it has no room
For petty furniture—
The Giant tolerates no Gnat
For Ease of Gianture—
Repudiates it, all the more—
Because intrinsic size
Ignores the possibility
of Calumnies—or Flies.
—Emily Dickinson
About the artist:
CE Whiting is a recent transplant to New Hampshire. She grew up in “Chicagoland” and spent many hours in the Art Institute of Chicago, observing, absorbing, and learning from the work of masters. Whiting attended the University of Illinois to study music history and violin performance, after which she completed a graduate degree in library and information science. She has also studied writing, with emphasis on journalism and poetry.
Over the years Whiting raised a family, worked as a corporate law firm librarian, taught violin, worked in internet development with a bi-national government agency, wrote about the economy as an independent journalist, and wrote poetry. In 2017, she was awarded a Tupelo Press poetry fellowship at MASS MoCA. Her interest in poetry continues to inform her painting. Whiting enjoys painting landscapes, subjects from the natural world, and animal portraits, which she paints on commission.
You can see more of CE Whiting's work on her website: cewhitingart.com
