Opening Reception: Saturday, April 5 from 6–8 pm
Gallery Location: 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10 am–5 pm
Contact Info: 504.522.1999; www.arthurrogergallery.com
The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present The Swinging Pendulum, an exhibition of mixed media on reconstructed paper by Edward Whiteman. The exhibition will be on view at Arthur Roger Gallery, located at 432 Julia Street, from March 15 – April 19, 2014. The gallery will host an opening reception with the artist in attendance on Saturday, April 5 from 6-8 pm.
The Nile, 2013. Mixed media on reconstructed paper, 83 x 62 inches.
The Swinging Pendulum, Edward Whiteman’s twelfth solo exhibition with the gallery, features his renowned large-scale paintings created with mixed media on reconstructed paper. The wall pieces range in size from 4 to 10 feet and include familiar motifs – simple yet powerful linear forms with seductive color inspired by the environment. The artist’s paintings are unequivocally abstract but filled with possible allusions such as in The Nile, a work from the artist’s recent Egypt Series. These works feature subtler lines and more intricate patterns in earthen colors.
The artist’s preference to work in paper grew out of a desire, in his words, “to become part of the surface and to give it a personal history before committing myself to an image.” Through his specially developed techniques he utilizes the flexibility of paper to achieve an effect of inseparability of image and media. The collage process he employs allows for quick changes and immediate discovery in his work. According to Whiteman, the image of the pendulum aptly represents the ever-present movement in his creative process between the unconscious – the genesis of his work – and conscious.
Edward Whiteman is originally from upstate New York. He received his undergraduate degree from the Albright Art School at the University of Buffalo. After residing in New York and England, he moved to New Orleans. The artist was included in the 1975 Whitney Biennial and the 1975 New Orleans Museum of Art Biennial. He received a Ford Foundation Grant in 1980. In 1990 he was awarded a major grant from the Penny McCall Foundation. That same year Whiteman moved his studio from Uptown New Orleans to Covington. In 2011 he received the President’s award as the St. Tammany Parish Visual Artist of the Year. Whiteman’s work is included in the collections of the Albright-Knox Gallery, the National Museum of Fine Arts, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the State of Louisiana and the Virlane Foundation in New Orleans.