JOHN WHITLOCK

Brooklyn, NY. USA

Bio

John Whitlock is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Recognized for his collage work, his current practice includes charcoal drawing, painting, and mixed media works on canvas and paper. John has been exhibited and published internationally and is a regular contributor to various editorial publications such as the NY Times and The Atlantic. He was profiled with a four-page feature in Gestalten’s Age of Collage: Contemporary Collage in Modern Art. John is also an occasional musician and a fledgling documentarian.

Statement

Familiarity through abstraction. My work is about transformation and the reframing of the familiar. Ordinary images take on an ambiguous meaning when stripped of their context and resurfaced into new, kaleidoscopic form. Like a distant memory presenting itself in a déjà vu, the aim is to evoke an implied, but equivocal narrative through abstraction.

The current work starts with small, noir-like collages that are reproduced as large-scale charcoal drawings, and further transformed as cut works for both canvas and paper. Built up through improvised layers of acrylic paint, charcoal, cut canvas, and paper, the resulting compositions are both formalist and representational, structured and chaotic.

Limited Edition Prints

Curatorial note

For Jack Felice, what’s hidden can be as potent as what remains visible. His collages begin with found images—vintage magazines, old print matter—yet his true interest lies in the transformation: choosing what to preserve, what to suppress, and where to let silence intervene. He often works quickly, without lingering too long on any fixed decision, avoiding predictable paths. What he covers, what he erases, becomes a space of possibility—a gap for perception to wander. Beneath the layers of cut paper, tape, or collage edges, faint ghosts of imagery persist, offering a tension between absence and trace. His collage surfaces are materials: he cares as much about paper type, texture, ink imperfections, dog-ears, blemishes, and discolorations as about composition itself. Where he once discarded imperfect pages, now he celebrates them, letting the quirks of time and handling add voice to the work. The layering of tape—its removal, its revealing of white pulls—and the act of obscuring images both invite us to dwell, to peer, to fill in meaning. Through what is withheld, Felice cultivates openness. His work does not dictate a narrative; it allows us to roam the edges of image and void, to sense the ghosts between cuts and the space that emerges from erasure.

In the artist's own words

"In this piece, I would layer magazine pages on top of one another and cut away in rectangular shapes at the top layer. In the holes this created, I would paste a new layer in the square spaces provided. Sometimes these squares line up perfectly, other times I would be left with a faint outline of the secondary layer. At the same time, I was gifted a stack of discarded post cards. Rather than being drawn to the photograph on the front of the postcard, I would use the reverse side complete with pencil marks and other imperfections."

J.F.

Original Artworks

In the artist's own words

Narrative interacts with my collages in a way that allows the viewer to create meaning for themselves. Most of my collages are interested in that grey area of poetry where the focus or intent is left up to the viewer.

J.F.

In the artist's own words

This collage developed through a fascination with grids and the limitations and confines grids provide. By overlapping certain clippings, a sort of circular narrative develops. What I enjoy most about this series is the limitless narrative possibilities these pieces evolve into. The view can move around on the page in any order they choose, and the narrative outcome can change with every viewing.

J.F.

Curatorial note

For Jack Felice, what’s hidden can be as potent as what remains visible. His collages begin with found images— vintage magazines, old print matter—yet his true interest lies in the transformation: choosing what to preserve, what to suppress, and where to let silence intervene. Through what is withheld, Felice cultivates openness. His work does not dictate a narrative; it allows us to roam the edges of image and void, to sense the ghosts between cuts and the space that emerged from erasure.

Phantom Tigers and Parallel Papers artists

Alma Haser

Andrea Burgay

Jack Felice

Mark Wagner

Miko Hornborg

Paul Henderson

Susana Blasco

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"Collage tells us not just what cultures have produced but what they’ve fostered. You can tell what American mainstream culture is thinking by looking at a newsstand."

Wangechi Mutu
in conversation with Robert Enright
2008