Exhibitions
RIPLEY WHITESIDE: CATARACTS
The Red Arrow Gallery / 919 Gallatin Ave. , Suite #4 February 6, 2021 - February 28, 2021
Ripley Whiteside
We are as much a part of the water cycle as water is a part of us. Despite its ubiquity as a primary driver of our existence, the water cycle in all its complexity can be hard to see. Our anthropocentric gaze tends to obscure the human relationship to ecology; this perspective mistakenly encourages us to understand nature as something apart from ourselves. It is through this distortion that ecologies may be reduced to resources for extraction or real estate (where a premium may be paid for a water view). This blind spot may cause us to miss the devastating truth that the water cycle is vulnerable to disruptions associated with our success.
These paintings are made with watercolor (pigment and binder suspended in water) and homemade walnut ink (tannin-rich walnut husks boiled in water). Some colors were applied traditionally with a brush, some were applied to pressed and dried plants which were then laid onto wet paper, some were brushed on traditionally and then plant material was laid on while wet and removed after drying, and some were painted through tarlatan and other meshes.
Ripley Whiteside (b. 1982) grew up in Chapel Hill and Durham, NC. He graduated with a BFA from UNC-CH in 2008, and in 2012 earned an MFA from SUNY-Buffalo, where he also taught foundations art courses. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions in the US and Canada, and has been a resident at Willapa Bay A.I.R., The Peanut Factory, I-Park, and The Vermont Studio Center. He lives and works in Nashville, TN. This is his first solo show with Red Arrow Gallery. (b. 1982) grew up in Chapel Hill and Durham, NC. He graduated with a BFA from UNC-CH in 2008, and in 2012 earned an MFA from SUNY-Buffalo, where he also taught foundations art courses. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions in the US and Canada, and has been a resident at Willapa Bay A.I.R., The Peanut Factory, I-Park, and The Vermont Studio Center. He lives and works in Nashville, TN. This is his first solo show with Red Arrow Gallery.
