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Iain Whittaker

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Iain Whittaker
Iain Whittaker

I have a fondness for ludicrous yet convincing images with unexpected undertows, and placing the unfamiliar with the familiar in what people call “making strange of things”. Paintings that are confrontational yet with empathetic groundings and a metaphorically autobiographical bent. Not objects for passive consumption that fit comfortably within administrated culture, but lucid psychological spaces formed from an interplay between art and life. Images that feel seductively 'other' and steeped in hallucinatory detail from which the viewer can leap into an intangible, perhaps unexpected, realm of feeling.

Ideas for paintings may come fast, but they often lurk around for years as tenuous mind visualisations before they coalesce into forms offering substance and depth. Surrounded by research, photographic images, drawings, vague compositional scribbles, found objects and props, a picture often begins with a focus point like a face, and a delight in creating small worlds amid the large. I sometimes feel like Dr Frankenstein, stitching up body parts that can only come alive with the electricity of intense detailing. These images are hardly ever formed all at once or found in a fitting sequence. Always digging around for something else, I don't enjoy painting where everything is measured or preordained and conceptually understood from the start.

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The beinArt International Surreal Art Collective & beinArt Publishing were founded in 2006 by Jon Beinart. All artists have granted permission to be featured on this website. All art herein is copyrighted and may not be reproduced without the express permission of the respective artists. beinArt.org represents contemporary artists working in one or more of the following art traditions: Pop Surrealism, Lowbrow, Fantastic Realism, Magic Realism, Surrealism, Symbolism, Psychedelic, Visionary, Esoteric, Erotic, Dark & Macabre Art. This website was designed by Leo Plaw.