Erin Whitman
Artist, San Diego, United States, joined 11 years ago
I see art as a vehicle for metaphor, a way to express the duality inherent to experience. My constructed world is structured through oppositions, and through it, I explore the relationship between truth and fiction, control and entropy, light and darkness. As my process becomes increasingly theatrical, I move beyond the canvas to create tangible space, its architecture a stage set for an open-ended narrative. Although still a metaphor, my work is also a literal point of intersection between fantasy and reality. Building layers of illusion, where trompe l’oeil trickery seems more convincing than the artificial real, and the gates that promise entrance are only sheets of mirrored glass, I have created a world based on paradox. In the center of that space, the floor opens into the abyss and the sky spirals into light above it. These holes remain constructions of paint and cloth and wire but still exert a mysterious gravitational pull. My paintings of this space are relics of a world that only partially exists. They are an expression of my longing to bridge the contradictions within myself, drawn inexorably towards both light and darkness, redemption and destruction.
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