Whitney McVeigh
Biography
(American, b. 1968)
At a moment when figurative art is enjoying something of a renaissance, Whitney McVeigh has produced a series of works that combine the expressive immediacy of gestural abstraction with the psychological depth of portraiture. The ‘Heads’ paintings are mainly executed in acrylic inks on paper or canvas and are not portraits in the conventional sense, but adopt certain formal aspects of portraiture merely as a starting point for a more inventive take on human individuality. McVeigh has spoken of her interest in what she calls “the internal landscape: our make-up,” seeing her ‘Heads’ as representative of “a frailty beneath the complex surface of us all.” Like the sculpted heads of Elisabeth Frink, McVeigh’s ‘Heads’ paintings allude to the tension between universal human frailty and the totemic qualities of the human image that are central to ancient and ‘primitive’ art.
Alongside the ‘Heads’, McVeigh makes another body of work in the form of abstract black monoprints. Sharing the importance of the process of painting and being open to the materials, as is seen with the ‘Heads’, there is more of a physicality to these works.
In August 2014, Eyestorm published the limited edition print 'Map of Time’ featured here. The use of black is important to McVeigh as there is no reduction process. McVeigh’s fluid means of applying paint to the picture surface suggests a degree of technical ‘looseness’ which actually disguises the control exercised in the production of the image.
Whitney McVeigh was born in New York in 1968 and moved to the UK in 1976 where she studied at Edinburgh College of Art. In 2009 she had a solo show of her black & white works at the respected A Foundation in London’s Shoreditch, for which the catalogue included an essay by art writer JJ Charlesworth.
McVeigh has held residencies in Mexico, India and China and more recently at the Nirox Foundation in South Africa. In 2009 she employed the use of video during a trip to Syria to create Sight of Memory and in 2012 she visited Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia with the BBC to make a short film about artists. The artist has taken part in international exhibitions such as David Krut Projects, NY and Archeology of Memory at Nirox Projects, Johannsburg and has worked in residency at NY Arts in their Beijing space. McVeigh participated in the significant group show, Identity Theft, curated by James Putam at Mimmo Scognamiglio, Milan. In 2013 her work featured in 'White Light/White Heat Glasstress' at the Palazzo Franchetti - a Collateral Project of the 55th Venice Biennale and solo project Hunting Song at the Gervausti Foundation curated by James Putnam.
In 2008 she was nominated for the Sovereign European Art Prize by Saatchi Gallery director, Rebecca Wilson in 2008 and was featured in BBC Four documentary, ‘Where is Modern Art Now?’ in 2009. McVeigh has attended the Louise Bourgeois Salon in her home in New York and has lectured at Wits University and Artist's Proof Studio in Johannesburg. Her work is held in collections world-wide. She will be showing in a group show titled ‘Unlocking The Diary’ at The Burlington Hotel in Folkestone in August as part of the Fringe, which runs until November 2014. Whitney lives and works in London.