Conditioned. One’s life is conditioned to their surroundings, their physical and metaphysical ambiance, their society and culture. The works of Whitney-Jade reflect the response to these conditions and how their process of making is an apprenticeship of oneself. Whitney-Jade’s works approach the conditions in which she is/was submitted and how reflection of her inner impulses engages in a process of change in the form of becoming. The development of the artist's practice, in its most natural sense, must follow the golden thread of discovery beyond the self. It is from the interpretation of the world through the intermediation of the brush that she finds her place in it. 

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Wilding Watercolour, as she likes to call it, is the creative response that challenge the affairs of the mind which are rooted in imperialist thinking.  Personal feelings of loss and sadness resonate in her day-to-day and although they are important themes they lend themselves to the desire to move beyond, the latter being the main protagonist in this story. It is the artist’s perception that through the trial of sadness  the awareness of an extraordinary-self, a self is not the self at all, is present. This presence instils with it the potential for the mundane self to transform.

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Whitney-Jade has always been bewildered by Nature. She is inspired by the natural environment and wild animals she has encountered whilst living in Zimbabwe and on her walks around London parks. To her, this is where she finds connectivity to superior principles that exceeds both herself and her socio-political environment.

The presence of dead imagery seen in her paintings serve her work allegorically.  There is a profound identification with the depicted deceased animals and the social weight that is associated to the female that signify a tension between masculine and feminine stereotypes. This tension expresses a desire to return to a (non)differentiated unity also creates a space that is othering. 

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The contrasting imagery of domestic, wild animals and pot plants, inanimate and animate are symbols of a controlled and restrained environment. However, the de-configuration of shapes and the de-construction of figures advocate a will to move beyond the fixed-forms implemented by human supremacy. 

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Intuition becomes the forefront of interest and is the potential cause resulting in movement which abstracts the figures and create its own organic shapes and pattern. The trace of this movement is seen in the paintings as the abstract forms that have been loosened from their former constructs. Attention to this intuitive development changes the course of direction in the body of work and leads the artist to question the base substance of watercolour paint used to create the works — resulting in formations of balancing rocks painted onto the paper surface. Her interest now focuses on the vibratory influence of light and colour as the foundation of all material interpretation. 

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The curatorial perspective of the works, have been placed to signify the most important aspect of the paintings — movement. This movement implies there is a continuation of the exhibited works rather than an end. It is the artist’s later findings transcribed as balancing rocks, colour and light that have been positioned as unframed works in process that suggest the end of a beginning. 

 

                                                    Wilding watercolour.