Jeffrey Whetstone: Drawing E. obsoleta at Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago
The struggle between Whetstone and the line mirrors the struggle between humans and nature: the instinct to control and describe, to dominate and re-render the environment around us. The interplay between performance, documentary, narrative, and graphical representation comprise visual and conceptual possibilities for this project and others.
porcelain projects is a dedicated black box gallery in the backroom of moniquemeloche. It was conceived of in 2014 to create an opportunity to exhibit film, video and new media art within the most domestic space of the gallery: the powder room. It offers the opportunity for audiences to experience video work in an intimate, non-traditional space as well as the potential of video to activate tertiary environments. The impetus for porcelain projects was to explore how an ongoing film program can function within the gallery, while demonstrating how film can live in a vernacular setting; such as the space of one’s home. Building on the momentum of on the wall (2010 – present) and newly inaugurated off the wall (2014-present), porcelain projects is an extension of the gallery’s interest in programming exhibitions in non-traditional spaces.
Jeffrey Whetstone (American, b. 1968 Chattanooga, lives Durham, NC) has been photographing and writing about the relationship between man and nature since he received a Zoology degree from Duke University in 1990. He received his MFA in photography from Yale University in 2001. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Area 919: Artists in the Triangle, Nasher Museum at Duke University (2015); State Park, University of California, San Diego (2015); Alternative Modernisms, curated by Cora Fisher, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, North Carolina (2015); State of the Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas (2014); Photographs and Films, NSCAD University, Halifax (2014); Frame/Ablate, Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, NC (2013); Photo 50, Goldsmiths University, London (2010). Awards include the Factor Prize for Southern Art (2008), a Guggenheim Fellowship for New Wilderness (2007), and the Sakier Prize for Photography (2001). Whetstone was an artist-in-residence at Appalshop, Inc., a media arts center located in coalfields of eastern Kentucky, where he was the project director for the Before the Flood exhibition that premiered at the National Folk Festival (1993). He has been published in the New York Times, ArtNews, Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, and the Village Voice, amongst others. His photographs and essays have been featured in Southern Changes, DoubleTake, Southern Exposure, and Daylight Magazine. His work is in numerous public collections, including the Yale University Art Gallery, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Nasher Museum at Duke. Whetstone teaches at the Art Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
