Emerald Rose Whipple (b.1989)'s paintings begin with the ubiquity of the image, especially in terms of how fluency in what one might call a "dialect" of images – making them, manipulating them, sharing them, responding to them – has come to define how we now conjure the idea of "youth.”

BIOGRAPHY

Born in California in 1989, Emerald Rose Whipple split her childhood between Ojai, California and Kauai, Hawaii. She received a BFA in Fashion Design from Pratt in 2012, after which she worked in design and styling for fashion houses and labels such as Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler, and Acne Studios. Since shifting to painting in 2014, Whipple's work has appeared in Dazed & Confused Magazine, Another Magazine, The Last Magazine, and has been featured in The Huffington Post, i-D Magazine, Women’s Wear Daily, HART Magazine, De Witte Raaf, Transmission Magazine and Engram. Currently, Whipple lives and works in New York City.

Emerald Rose Whipple's paintings begin with the ubiquity of the image, especially in terms of how fluency in what one might call a "dialect" of images – making them, manipulating them, sharing them, responding to them – has come to define how we now conjure the idea of "youth.” Each picture is a work of recovery, an attempt to recapture the fleeting moments of a fluid social world in which emotion and affect wax and wane at speed. The slow process of building the paintings up through distinct strokes and marks echoes both the low-res pixelation that so often indexes such fugitive moments, caught as they are in low-light settings and on devices with tiny lenses, as well as a history of art that has hinged on modernity and the ephemeral.

Nascent within Whipple's paintings is also a language of fashion design and styling that only a select few will be able to "read"; the pattern of a shirt, the fold of a cuff, or the role of a sleeve offers both an iconography of style as well as style's own recuperation as a concept and commentary on the art of today. Fashion is not the issue here as much as the way that clothes are and are not worn. Whipple's subjects are appearances that feature people – friends, acquaintances, mutuals – but are not portraits. They are fashioned with only minimal apparent effort. They wholly embrace the fact that the image and the screen will have their own way with them.

PHILOSOPHY

Whipple draws inspiration from ancient western philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius as well as ancient theological texts such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Tao Te Ching. Her work also touches on the modern teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, Ram Dass and Eckhart Tolle, which focus primarily on the Presentism movement. Her work acts as an allegory for ancient wisdom. 

Whipple’s work challenges the view to consider the impact of light, divinity, and collective consciousness to draw conclusions on their own beliefs. Through this participation the viewer investigates not only the work but also the internal response to the paintings. The artist’s intent is to transmit a sacred atmosphere of unconditional love to the viewer to exist and participate in. The work disrupts the moment by pausing the minds attachment of the ego, and allows for an investigation of the present moment, one with the nature of all things. For Whipple, all that we experience is subjective, as there is no sensation without interpretation. Consequently we create the world and ourselves making everything relative, as an individual we are condemned by our own perspective from our point in life. The appreciation of life for Whipple requires only gratitude for the beauty all around. We have the power to take in the essence of life in each moment.