Over the past twenty-five years, Ian Whittlesea’s work has assumed many forms, from paintings and light installations to printed books and ephemera, always exploring the relationships between language, light and image. Among his latest and ongoing body of works, the White Cloud Forming paintings are made using only sprayed pigment, without brushes or any physical contact with the support. They are simultaneously a representation of another’s mystical state and entirely abstract records of the process of their own making. They have an ethereal presence that speaks of both their esoteric subject matter and their means of production. The veils of spectral colour along with the air-propelled method of application parallel Whittlesea’s ongoing work with breath and breath control. 

Whittlesea’s work is held in private and public collections in the UK, USA, France, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and Singapore. He has exhibited with the Barbican Centre, London; Artists Space, New York; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; BOZAR, Brussels; Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge; Delfina Foundation, London; The Bluecoat, Liverpool; Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin; Canopy Collections, London.

Ian Whittlesea (b. 1967) Lives and works in London

Over the past twenty-five years, Ian Whittlesea’s work has assumed many forms, from paintings and light installations to printed books and ephemera, always exploring the relationships between language, light and image. Among his latest and ongoing body of works, the White Cloud Forming paintings are made using only sprayed pigment,...
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