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| STATEMENT |
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I’ve studied the portrait closely for many years and the work has slowly evolved into semi-abstract paintings that are an intimate study of human life. The ‘Heads’ represent the state and space we contain since birth. Stripped of surface they are a brutal and honest look at the human psyche. They are the ‘inscape’, our own personal landscape. They represent the essence of who we are.
The poet Gerald Manley Hopkins talks about "inscape" having to do with the individual essence and uniqueness in every physical thing. I’m interested in this as a concept: that truth is in human individuality.
I work from photographic portraits and drawings I’ve made.
I submit to my subject during the process, there’s a conscious attempt to be present and to let the materials guide me in response to what I’m seeing.
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| BIOGRAPHY |
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Whitney McVeigh was born in New York, USA in 1968. She received a BA degree at the Edinburgh College of Art where she began to explore visual arts in relation to sculptural form and to study the portrait head. McVeigh has travelled extensively for her work, with significant periods spent in Europe, India and China while keeping a home base in the UK. In 2006 she attended the Salon of Louise Bourgeois in New York where she gave a short talk about her current work. In 2007 she was artist in residence at NY Arts in their Beijing space, where she was shown with another British painter.
Whitney McVeigh is currently represented by Being 3 Gallery in China and Cat Street Gallery in Hong Kong. In Spring 2009 she will be given a solo show by Being 3 in China. In November 2007, she showed at the Broadway Gallery in New York. She has worked on portrait commissions and has exhibited her work both in solo and group shows internationally. Most recently Arcaute Contemporaneo have taken her work on in Mexico. In March this year McVeigh showed with Saatchi online at the Form Art fair and at The Gallery, Soho with Belgian photographer Pascal Demeester. Her work featured in the Times, Financial Times and NY Arts magazine in March 2008. In June, 2008, NY Arts magazine published Bed Heads online and 3 Heads will feature in the July issue of the magazine. An interview and images of the Heads will feature in Point de Vue magazine in August 2008. McVeigh makes her work through a process of automatism. She explores themes of sexuality and of male/female bodily form and the recurrent theme of the portrait head is present in her work. Her treatment is figuration, in the spirit of contemporary artists ranging from Francis Bacon to the more abstract mark makers Cy Twombley and Robert Motherwell in her black ink work.
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| EDUCATION |
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| Edinburgh College of Art BA degree |
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| REPRESENTATION |
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Cat Street Gallery Hong Kong
Being 3 Gallery China |
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| SOLO EXHIBITS |
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| See website |
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| GROUP EXHIBITS |
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| See website |
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| ARTICLES |
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The Times (London) - March 2008
Financial Times (London) - March 2008
NY Arts Magazine (London) - June 2008
The Telegraph (London) - March 2008
Fad Magazine Interview - July 2008 |
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| OTHER INFO |
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| SCHOOL INFO |
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