Andrew Pengilly
White
White explores the observation of light and the colour white. It addresses ways of seeing and is influenced by the practice of the 19th-century painter Whistler. The work aims to reveal connections between the observation of the effect of light and the way an image of a place can be conveyed. The work explores not the representation of a place but rather an experience and emotional response to the act of seeing.
The body of work explores narrative, building a sustained sense of the place from a series of abstract white representations that aim to convey an impression of modernist architecture and place.
The work explores and creates links between Whistler’s exploration of the colour white – linking Whistler’s work and methods of presentation, the ‘white cube’ gallery space and modernist architecture. The colour white is used to bind these apparently unconnected notions.
White strips away all embellishment and detail, defining simple white forms, creating imagined and real spaces. In the photographic form it highlights the disparity between what the observer and the camera can see, making the photographic painterly.