
Interview with Curator Phaedra Siebert
Ben Whitehouse talks about his painting and
the evolution of The Revolution Series
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio
March 15 - April 25
Revolution Still Lifes
ArtChicago
April 30 - May 3
Perimeter Gallery, Booth TBA
Grand Rapids Art Museum
June 4 - August 22
GRAM and Ox-Bow
Perimeter Gallery, Chicago September 10 - October 9
Curatorial Statement from John Brunetti (exerpts)
![]() Lochindorb (Early Morning) | 1999 | Oil on Canvas |
Evanston Art Center
January 7 - February 28, 2001
The Memory of Place features the work of three mid-career, Chicago-based painters -
![]() Lagoon (Autumn) | 72"X 92" | 1999 | Oil on Canvas |
For Whitehouse, Gamble and Ritchard, the relationship between sight and knowledge is not a simple linear progression. By itself, sight is a suspect tool for transmitting the comprehensive information necessary to reveal the complex relationships - physical, optical, cultural - between the viewer and the landscape. As a result, while their paintings may initially appear to be solely the result of direct observation, they are in actuality more complex amalgams. Their works are a distillation of travels, observations and, most importantly, their responses to the visual language of landscape painting and its cultural influences. Consequently, memory is a facilitator to the artists' processes. They use memory not for poignant reminiscing, but instead as a means of mixing together and then filtering multiple layers of information that shape the interpretation of painted images. The works of Whitehouse, Gamble and Ritchard are compelling because they reveal that our own active engagement with the landscape, both its terrain and symbolism, is ultimately necessary to define the meaning of place for each individual.
Making the unseen atmospheric qualities of water and landscape - quiet physical rhythms or unnerving stillness, evaporating wetness or disintegrating dryness - palpable is one of the most difficult challenges for a painter. For the English-born artist
If the viewer's initial response to these artists' reinterpretations of the landscape is one of resistance, that is to be expected. Challenging the status quo of one of our most important images for defining our sense of reality should initiate a dialogue. Whitehouse, Gamble and Ritchard prompt us to delve into our own memories to understand the places we inhabit.
John Brunetti
Curator, "The Memory of Place"