My name is Whitney North and I paint acrylic on canvas. Those are all the facts of the matter. Why I paint? What inspires me? Those answers are far more vague…
I can conclude that I paint what I paint because that is what I have in me to paint; and the images that lurk behind my eyes desire to come out into the light. Sometimes a simple suggestion for a new subject matter can spark a blazing fire of creativity inside me, sometimes I just feel like challenging myself and trying something new, other times I do the same subject over and over again in different colors, patterns or sizes because I enjoy improving upon my previous attempts. That is the truth in the simplest terms that I can describe them in.
I like to work on a large scale because I feel that it gives me more space for expression. Think of my general aversion to smaller canvases as creative claustrophobia. I use acrylic paint because I don’t enjoy waiting for oil paints to dry and because I dislike the lucidity of water colors.
I prefer not to blend my colors, instead using areas of flat color to add to the simplicity of the images I create. To my way of thinking, if you can tell it’s supposed to be a tree then it’s a tree.
As for “how to appreciate my work”, “how to look at my work”, or “how I hope others will see my work” I will leave that up to the viewer. I simply hope that the work that I create will evoke a fraction of the emotional response in others that creating it brings to me.
