Brad Cooper Gallery

ARTIST STATEMENT

JEFF WHIPPLE

My visual art, writing and video have always depicted provocative relationships between people and objects to engage viewers in a creative contemplation of themes that range from social relationships to psychological issues to politics and to personal values.

From my earliest student work up to the present, I’ve always used visual art to convey ideas and emotions in the same way a poet uses words and phrases. I never try to illustrate a specific concept. I try to guide the viewer in a particular direction but I leave the interpretations open so viewers can creatively bring their own lives and ideas into the artwork.

I’ve used the same painting format for more than twenty years. It allows me to use a wide range of visual information and 2D elements while maintaining a stylistic continuity that now unifies hundreds of paintings. In general, the images are placed against a painterly background to take them out of their normal context. I often combine images from completely different times and places to investigate the potential metaphorical associations between them. I use non-objective background colors and markings to create a mood or emotional quality that can add another dimension to the interpretations of the images. My videos use the same presentation format as my paintings.

My work in performance, installation, theater and video is rooted in the same conceptual interests as my static visual art. The elements of time, words, sounds, live actors, interactive media and video adds a tremendous amount of interpretive information to the artworks but the initial concepts are very similar to those in my paintings.