The ability to disconnect from our mind, to truly appreciate natural beauty is overwhelmingly encouraged by the paintings of New York based Californian artist Emerald Rose Whipple. In her eyes we should spend our time dwelling on the loveliness of mother nature to remember the innocence the delicate, the gossamer and the beautiful while releasing our thoughts of strategy, territory, defense, gain and advantage. The artist believes the absolute nature of life can only be comprehended and thereby enjoyed when merging fully with its flow from which we are fundamentally connected.  

Rivington Design House, curator Brion Isaacs, will be exhibiting Whipple’s first solo exhibition in New York City, opening Friday, March 15TH through Friday April 25th.  Whipple has shown at Rox Gallery in New York City in a group show curated by Dylan Forsberg and is represented by Galerie Jan Dhaese in Gent, Belgium. She grew up between California and Hawaii and attended Pratt Institute.

The narrative scenes of Hawaiian Forest floors, crystalline sunlight reflections displaced in crashing waves and a figurative portrait of youth in an elusive state of psychedelic bliss describes many pieces in the show.

Although modern in interpretation of subject, the execution of the paintings echo’s the early 20th century impressionist and pointillist movement. The brushstrokes are linear and con trolled to a degree of pointillism, both in portraiture and abstract landscape. The commingling of dots manifest into strokes, woven together to reflect the modern media of digital photography distorted by pixel, which ultimately compile the image as a whole. The viewer if forced to study the work from afar allowing the eye to naturally create the image, because when immediately engaged the image is out of focus. The fact that our eye can only focus on one point at a time further illustrates the difficulty we face to take in the details of the world and our life all at once. When we look at a large image from every angle it is never whole but made up of composite images in our mind, glimpses fleeting and random. The up close abstraction plays on the viewers element of perception, only with distance is the image made clear.

Further, the process of viewing the work by becoming immersed then disengaged to understand it fully is a personal reference by the artist to her concept of the comprehension of time. To the artist, all that we experience is subjective, as there is no sensation without interpretation. This acts as an allegory for the illusion of separation between everything, yet how when we look at the big picture we are all interconnected. Consequently we create the world and ourselves making everything relative, as an individual we are condemned by our own perspective from our point in life.

In the end, since we are conditioned by interpretation, filtered knowledge, and the analytical experience of data, the viewer is encouraged to disconnect from the mind of interpretation and experience natural beauty as one.  One with the nature of all things. The quest Whipple sets the viewer on is to disengage and see the self as the whole.

Whipple’s paintings are a representation of sanctuary, the precious stillness and peace of tranquility within the turbulence of the world. We are rejuvenated and new with each passing moment where we are disengaged from our mind. Therefore becoming fully present, to hear the voice of a wave crashing against the sand or the quiet hum of the forest floor within the stillness.

At the core, the appreciation of life for Whipple requires only gratitude for the beauty all around. We have the power to take in the essence of life in each moment.