James Whitington
Artist Bio
James Whitington worked as a master printmaker with many
distinguished Australian artists including Brett Whiteley, Charles
Blackman, Tim Storrier, David and Arthur Boyd through 1977- 2000. For the last 30 years he has focused on his painting and printmaking, exhibiting in Blaxland Gallery in 1988, Brenda May in 2009 and other Sydney galleries. He had a touring exhibition of monotypes in regional NSW and is part of the permanent collections of Orange, Grafton and Charles Sturt University
Artist Statement
These works are different examples of Monoprint. The dark works are made by wiping a line from dark ink rolled onto an even surface. They are abstract portraits, initially inspired by the shapes and character of chairs and created by using an etching press at low pressure.
The other figurate portraits use the monoprint technique of verso printing. Once again, a surface of ink is established with a roller, but the image is created by drawing onto the back of a sheet of
absorbent paper, after being dropped onto the ink surface. These works were created at a residency in Cairns where I taught students to print without a printing press. Although created six years apart, I felt there was a connection between both series of work which is why I’ve shown them together. Examples of my monotype work were shown in a survey of Australian mono printing “Mono Uno” curated by Thomas Middlemost in 2006. The term “Mono Print” refers to the singularity of each work. There is no use of an etched or engraved plate from which an edition can be made.