31.8 x 25.4 cm
Unveiling an eclectic exhibition of small watercolour artworks on paper by Ripley Whiteside, displayed in the vitrine looking out onto Rachel Street. This collection celebrates the summer solstice and announces a brief one-week gallery break during the last week of June.
These pieces showcase Whiteside's playful experimentation with the materiality of watercolour paint, highlighting his careful attention to hue, gesture, and detail in capturing the atmospheric effects of the sky and the creatures that inhabit it.
« Rainbow/angel on rainbows, and the Tame animals return to the wild series are from the 'Book of Wonders,' the Augsburg Book of Miracles, which features multiple rainbows, as well as images illustrating odd meteorological phenomena in which things (grain, hail, blood, small creatures) fall from the sky. This painting was made by laying the 'falling' plastic shapes on wet watercolour for the duration of the drying process.
The birds (Nanday parakeet, Red-crowned parrot, and Lovebird) were inspired by my favourite miracle described in The Augsburg Book of Miracles: in Italy during the year 73 CE, 'tame animals returned to the wild' (see attached). Today, parrots and parakeets that escape captivity have established sustaining feral populations in cities all over the world, sometimes wreaking havoc in local ecosystems. Personally, I've seen green parrots in parks in Paris, London, Los Angeles and New Orleans, as well as a lone, escaped Budgie in my neighbourhood in Nashville.
Sky Sphere 6 was made during a residency at Willipa Bay on the coast of Washington state - we visited the beach almost every day, and I was taken by the weather and sunsets, both of which inspired that series of paintings. » - Ripley Whiteside
