“I can build anything I want to build. I’m not a narrative painter. I don’t do the idea of the painting being the illustration of an idea. I don’t do that. It’s all about the materiality of the paint.” —Jack Whitten
Artist Jack Whitten passed away just about a year ago, on January 20, 2018 (b. December 5, 1939). Relentlessly inventive in his methods of creating, and driven by experimentation, Whitten was a beloved artist’s artist. Although plagued with self-doubt he never stopped pushing materiality and believing in the power of the process of painting. In 2017, Art21 had the good fortune to film him at work on what was to be his final painting. In this film, Whitten works away on Quantum Wall, VIII (For Arshile Gorky, My First Love In Painting) (2017) – which later went on display at a special memorial exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in New York – while musing about painting, his life, and career.