Begun in March 1975, Whitten’s Greek Alphabet works show his realization that “gray is power.” The artist created Kappa I using acrylic or graphite “slip,” a thin, translucent medium composed of his own proprietary formulation of pigments and chemicals in an acrylic suspension. After priming and painting the canvas, Whitten painted a white rectangle in the painting’s upper half and allowed it to dry. He then added another white rectangle to the lower half and, while it was still wet, applied a layer of black “slip,” raking it across the canvas with a grooved developer to produce thin horizontal lines. The interaction between wet and dry paints yielded two distinct textures and an oscillating visual field. Writing about this series, Whitten emphasized his goal of defining “a new spatial perception.”
Jack Whitten: The Messenger, March 23, 2025–August 02, 2025
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Jack Whitten
American, 1939–2018 9 works onlineThe artist Jack Whitten offered the world a new way to see. He worked throughout his prolific career to reimagine art and its relation to society. Their final objective is political in nature.
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