Whitney Bedford

Born in 1976, Whitney Bedford lives and works in Los Angeles. Bedford uses her own mark making to bring the original source material of her paintings into the realm of the imaginary. Layered with both ink and oil paint, romantic scenes of destruction, calm at sea, and migrating birds are manipulated to the point of abstraction, showing only vestiges of her starting point. Bedford’s process has shifted in her recent works. In past paintings, drawing was used to create an architecture for gesture. Now, though the paintings technically begin with the drawings, a painstaking process of masking and unmasking pushes the drawn flora to the fore and places the viewer at a further distance from the pastoral scenes behind or outside of the space of drawing. The distance created between painting and drawing underscores Bedford’s archival research and careful selection of images that seem to belong to a lost or disappearing world. Her new drawings are part of an encyclopeadic exercise the artist is pursuing. Every day she draws a woman who persisted in solidarity and to continue unwavering support of women who are challenging the world to be better. She considers these to be votives of support, and part of the proceeds will go in donation to Emily’s List, helping elect anti-racist progressive Democratic female candidates. ...

To avoid any narcissism the gallery will not bear a name, but instead mark of the end of a century during which the Fine Arts are exhausted of unknown practices and forms, Art: Concept was born. In 1997, the gallery joined its friends in the 13th district of Paris to be part of the adventure of the brand new rue Louise Weiss. Despite unforgettable years in this district, the move to the Marais was inevitable. Today, the gallery is located in a private passage (passage Sainte Avoye) and represents artists with whom it has been working for 25 years as well as young graduates. Trying to reflect the evolution of society, the gallery emphasises its proposals in a multi-faceted reflection on individuality and collectivity in a wide range of contexts. Like Janus, it looks both to the past and the future. Today's world is so in need of reference points that it's reassuring to invent a future, thanks to artists, as well as to compare it to the past. We invite you to ask for it, we will be at the gallery, very happy to explain it to you. ...