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Bio
Statement
JOHN WHITLOCK
Brooklyn, NY. USA
Limited Edition Prints
In the artist's words
"Fragmenting an image can make you see it in a completely different way. That actually happens to me while I am making the work, just as it might happen to the viewer who is looking at the work after it is done. I am drawn to the storytelling aspect of using photo material within abstract work. Because of that, I am definitely looking for those moments of recognition and often trying to center the work around them." J.W.
Open Hours
Available in 4 sizes
Edition varies by size
Edition varies by size
Limited Edition Print
from €102,00
Craftsmen
Available in 4 sizes
Edition varies by size
Edition varies by size
Limited Edition Print
from €102,00
In the artist's own words
"For these prints I decided to repurpose old unfinished collages that had been sitting in a flat file
for years. The core images were originally assembled for a large, public art mural that never materialized.
The subject matter dealt with urban activities and athletics. Revisiting the collages with a new set of eyes felt like playing a game of tennis with my former self, embracing certain decisions I’d made, and discarding others. The final pieces brought ink and paint into the fold to round out the formal compositions." J.W.
The subject matter dealt with urban activities and athletics. Revisiting the collages with a new set of eyes felt like playing a game of tennis with my former self, embracing certain decisions I’d made, and discarding others. The final pieces brought ink and paint into the fold to round out the formal compositions." J.W.
Dream Catcher
Collage, spray paint, ink, on paper
Edition varies by size
Edition varies by size
Limited Edition Print
from €102,00
Curatorial Note
John Whitlock has been with us since 2014, when he showed in our Brooklyn exhibition at the Invisible Dog Gallery. At that time he worked with paper and scissors, like most of us back then.
But something started moving in his work right around the same time something shifted in how we thought about collage too. He kept cutting paper, but added charcoal, then paint on canvas, building images that start as a small collage and end up somewhere much harder to name. On our side, we went toward thinking of collage in a broader way, moving from a paper-based medium to a way of thinking. In 2025 John talked at the Kolaj Fest Symposium about collage as a vehicle for what he called global interruption. In 2026 we named our show Day Spectres & Invisible Interruptions. We didn’t realize the connection until some time later. Interruptions, in collage, inform us and are always present.
Twelve years later, his own path from paper to paint, and his own word for what collage does, read like proof of something we've been trying to say for a while: collage cuts across many art mediums, paper being just one place it happens to land.
But something started moving in his work right around the same time something shifted in how we thought about collage too. He kept cutting paper, but added charcoal, then paint on canvas, building images that start as a small collage and end up somewhere much harder to name. On our side, we went toward thinking of collage in a broader way, moving from a paper-based medium to a way of thinking. In 2025 John talked at the Kolaj Fest Symposium about collage as a vehicle for what he called global interruption. In 2026 we named our show Day Spectres & Invisible Interruptions. We didn’t realize the connection until some time later. Interruptions, in collage, inform us and are always present.
Twelve years later, his own path from paper to paint, and his own word for what collage does, read like proof of something we've been trying to say for a while: collage cuts across many art mediums, paper being just one place it happens to land.
Artworks on Canvas
Above:
Hex. Enduction
Acrylic, charcoal, mixed media and cut canvas.
2023
Hex. Enduction
Acrylic, charcoal, mixed media and cut canvas.
2023
This work
is not for sale.
Below:
Industry Syndrome
Acrylic, charcoal, mixed media and cut canvas.
2023
Industry Syndrome
Acrylic, charcoal, mixed media and cut canvas.
2023
This work
is not for sale.
Industry Syndrome
Acrylic, charcoal, mixed media and cut canvas.
2021
"I think it is natural for an artist to not want to conform to one medium, one technique, or even one genre. Painting and collage have a ton in common. It makes perfect sense that a collage artist would end up working with mixed materials on canvas, or that a painter might experiment with gluing things to their paintings. For me, it was a mix of both. I wanted to make larger work for galleries, and I also wanted to eliminate the found material aspect to some degree so that the final work was entirely by my own hand. Making art is about experimenting, and I stumbled on a workflow that I was attracted to for both practical and conceptual reasons. " J.W.
John Whitlock's studio
Brooklyn, N.Y.
"When the photographic images are reproduced with charcoal, things are inevitably altered. Details are lost simply because it’s an imperfect reproduction. There’s an inherent softness to charcoal that can create a more diffused version of a sharp image, and working with charcoal on rough, primed canvas naturally limits the details. I like all of this. It’s as if the photograph is being mutated, pulled away from its original context, and made my own in all of these subtle ways."
John Whitlock
John Whitlock's studio
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Read More about John Whitlock on TWS
More Day Spectres & Invisible Interruptions artists
Exit through the Gift Shop
Day Spectres & Invisible Interruptions — Official T-Shirts.
Each design stays up for a month, then a new one takes its place.
If you like it, grab it.
It won't be here for long.
"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