The painting series entitled ‘Genesis’ Let there be Light’ by the artist Emerald Rose Whipple explores the relationship between the soul and the divinity of light embodied by the subject of modern youth. The portrait paintings epitomize New York’s Lower East Side avant-garde culture and convey the social anthropology of young people. Every painting, meticulously executed and teeming with adolescent attraction, is derived from Whipple’s and the subjects shared experiences. The lustrous youths portrayed are celebrated, although obscured, in Whipple’s decadent and ravishing interpretation. Whipple portrays the essence of innocence made clear only in retrospect. The work simultaneously explores the origins of youth and the light within the soul.

This universal desire is vividly brought to life and playfully documented in the adventure of each portrait. Perhaps encouraging thoughts about viewer’s own moral judgment of the impermanence of time. In this regard the series is also a product of social media, fashion, and popular culture. The androgynous faces guise the wild romanticism, spontaneity, and sentiment of her generation. Whipple depicts these lives through a high-fashion lens where wayward adolescents go on shuffling through life in a haze of self-absorption. Lounging, dancing, laughing, gallivanting in the street, the subjects assert themselves as if present in the world outside the canvas. The subject’s approach to life is totally carefree, savoring each sight, sound and touch. They are left mesmerized by existence. Through viewing these works the artist is rekindling the values of hope and purity while illustrating an acute awareness of a blossoming identity.

Whipple’s paintings transform everyday life into a magnificent atmospheric daydream. The subjects bear an assumptive apathy and vulnerability within the coming of age narrative. There is spontaneity and a vibration of divinity in a form of perception in Whipple’s devotion to the work. Not only are the subjects in the portraits connected to the artist but also the viewer experiencing the work. All subjects are linked to their representation of light by the artist just as we who coexist in reality are eternally and subconsciously connected. The purpose of the work is to transmit a sacred atmosphere of unconditional love to the viewer. Radiance and perfection lay hidden amidst the divine order of life. The work disrupts the moment by pausing the mind, the attachment of the ego, and allows for an investigation of the moment. Through this participation the viewer investigates not only the work but also the internal response to it. These paintings act as a mirror to the viewer displaying the self-perception on a subconscious scale by disrupting the internal dialogue. Whipple’s work challenges the view to consider the impact of light, divinity, and the collective consciousness to draw conclusions on their own beliefs.