The Watch Series- twenty-four hour observations of atmospherics.
Vector (for Lisa), 2014, Oil on twenty four 4" x 4" Panels, 4" x 104"
Lisa Randall (Harvard) told me that nothing we now know re Higgs Boson, string theory, membrane theory etc. challenges our understanding that time only travels in one direction and is still best represented as a vector.
Watch Over Time, 2006/7, Oil on three 48" Diameter Panels, 48" x 180"
An atmospheric record of the same coordinate of sky over three days at different times of the year.
Watch Over Time (Detail) showing storm activity as expressed by atmospherics
Watch Over London, 2011, Oil on Board, 24" x 24"
Alfedena, Chicago, 2007
Dr. J. Susan Isaacs, Chief Curator, Delaware Contemporary
“The qualities of the environment that most attracted Whitehouse in the early years of his career were its fluidity and its transitional nature, that it was never static and it never repeated itself.
Watch Series paintings are twenty four hour paintings made from direct observation of changing light in the sky over complete day/night cycles. The light observed is a result of several factors including the earth's evolving relationship to the sun, of course, and atmospheric conditions of the moment but another factor impacting perceived light is pollution levels. Particulate matter in the atmosphere is well understood to reflect and refract light and Watch in a real sense records the extent to which we are 'painting' the sky with our emissions.
Watches are sometimes made in conjunction with the making of Revolution videos (twenty-four hour videos). Some Watches take the form of twenty-four discrete observations made on the hour, every hour on separate panels. Others are continuous paintings on circular panels in which case the observed light changes are experienced as a seamless shift of the hue and value or as abrupt bands of light as when a storm flashes through the space. In either case Watch paintings are made from close, direct observation of sky light changing over time.
Whitehouse has always been interested in the physics of light, the way it behaves as both particle and wave. The Watch Series responds to some of these ideas in the different ways the pieces are configured when installed. Watch over the Water offers an image of light as both particle and wave, for example. Watch over Time offers time as a cyclical event and Watch Forward is configured as a vector to offer an image of time as a relentless progression forward.”