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In Search of Meaning:
Irene F. Whittome
by Laurier Lacroix
“The notion of a city to an artist
is the response on a daily basis to an imaginary ‘site'
store within the memory. What is interesting is the reaction to
this mental picture of emotional receptivity to be released by
the conscious mind. Montreal is the second city to nourish me
with a pyramid of life experiences. Vancouver, my natal city,
was the first.”
In the fall of 1980, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts held the
first major exhibition of the work of Irene F. Whittome. With
the assistance of anthropologist Jacqueline Fry, the artist grouped
several large installations in the show. Anyone who had the opportunity
to visit the exhibition will have preserved a vivid memory of
this initial foray into the artist's universe. The simple
enumeration of titles is sufficient to evoke: the itinerary between
the irregular flagstones and the cart in Vancouver; the
immersion in the Chapelle covered by partitions rising
to the ceiling; the intensity of the vertical pieces of wood wrapped
in paper and twine in The White Museum (1975); the enchantment
of Paperworks, assemblies of wax panels and computer cards showing
thousands of pinpricks; or a wander past the old desks in Class
Room (1977-1980). Whittome's installations have the power
to create a total, unforgettable experience in which the spectator
inhabits the intellectual and imaginary world of the artist.
This seminal exhibition incorporated several earlier works and
presaged what was to come in the following two decades. In the
midst of the presentation was L'Œil (1970), a
case holding a detail from Portrait of a Young Woman, a
painting by 15th century Flemish artist Petrus Christus that has
frequently been reworked by Whittome. Surrounded by balls of cotton
wool, the eye is central to the radiating cells of a carapace.
Its configuration foreshadows the turtle, whose shell and mobile
gaze would become the artist's alter ego after 1986 (Ho
T'u, 1988; Shamash, 1988; Linden/Tortue, 1998). In Curio:
Fantaisie — Fantasia — Fancy — Phantastereien
(1994), for example, Whittome stages, in the microcosm of a display
case, the fertile turtle coupling with knowledge in a blinding
light. The multiplication and diversity of containers (egg, book,
turtle, showcase), like the cocoons in Musée blanc,
denote some of the emblems of this Whittomian universe, composed
of matrices rich in potential. Whittome's art is first and
foremost presented as a coming together of places of fecundity.
Irene F. Whittome was born and raised in Vancouver, where she
studied at the Vancouver School of Art and was especially encouraged
by painter Jack Shadbolt. Paintings and drawings from this period
show her impatience with learning to reproduce the forms of life
models or those from art history put forward as examples for young
artists (Giotto, Picasso and so forth). The drawings are filled
with a tension bordering on destruction, and the oils attest to
an exuberance and a firm desire to create while criticizing the
references proposed. From 1963 to 1968, thanks in part to an Emily
Carr grant, Irene Whittome lived in France, drawing and printmaking
at Stanley Hayter's Atelier 17. Here again, the surface of
the paper, trying to contend with an excess of ink, is torn or
scarified, submitting to an artist who voluntarily integrates
a host of exogenous elements into the work.
When she returned to Canada, Montreal became her home. A teaching
position at Concordia University, not to mention the nearness
to water that recalled her West Coast youth, played a major part
in her decision. She has often developed projects on the theme
of water and that take on the form of pools or reservoirs (Canal
Soulanges, 1989 ; Château d'eau: lumière
mythique, 1997; Bashõ/Katsura, 1998). The artist
associates water — its accumulation of liquid mass, its capacity
for transfer and circulation, and its fluid gravity — with
the controlled energy of the flowing ink that transfers the gesture
of the hand, both instinctive and guided by memory, onto paper.
The expanse of contained water can be compared to her Autoportrait
(1976-1999/2000), a work in which the artist has photographed
a close-up of her bound hand. The power and violence of movement
in the distorted hand evoke the intensity of Whittome's work,
as well as her ability to challenge the dualities of the human
condition — powerless to achieve fully the freedom that lies
within its grasp.
The reservoir, like the box or the showcase, is one of the artist's
preferred spaces. Most of Whittome's works are sensitive
to the boundaries of the box that encloses, circumscribes and
protects them. The envelope, the corset and the carapace proliferate
in the artist's hands, as illustrated in Gymnasium: Outfit
of the Soul (1997). On the scale of an installation, the idea
of the box becomes an architectural construction (Illuminati,
1987), integrated into a pre-existing space (Linden/Tortue,
1998). For Whittome, a consideration of the uniqueness of the
setting or the provision of an initial context that allows the
work to take shape is a creative imperative.
At the core of Whittome's work lies a reflection on communication
and the transmission of meaning. As early as 1977, critic René
Payant had said that, like a mirror, her work facilitates exchanges,
where the thing that counts is the vision, the seeing that goes
hand in hand with fantasy and the imagination. Her artistic discourse
has to do primarily with the circulation that occurs between the
different entities making up the field of the work, and it questions
the construction, evolution, accumulation and diffusion of meanings.
The notions of gathering and transferring of values borrow the
metaphors of repetition and exhibition, of reproduction and regeneration
(Creativity — Fertility, 1985).
To enter Whittome's universe is to penetrate into a place
where the multiple symbolic relations stored there intertwine
with figures, colours, materials and stories. In the words of
art historian Johanne Lamoureux, the artist has a predilection
for discoveries that echo previous uses. In other words, Whittome
turns to materials that willingly retain an impression, associating
the various meanings already inscribed in the history of the object
or material with her new suggestions. She is curious to discover
and combine materials and artifacts whose meaning is enriched
through contact with each other. In this way, glass and turtle,
but also Kannon and Tantric manuscript, add their ritual portent
to the manipulations and inventions specific to each work.
The artist is drawn to realities that reveal their secrets to
initiates only, like the imbricated forms of the stupa (Anda/Stûpa,
1998), Braille transcriptions (Bashõ/Katsura) or
the enigmatic anatomical drawings that served as the starting
point for the series of prints in Conjunctio (1999). It
is not surprising then that she has been compared to an alchemist;
her aptitude in transmuting materials and their meanings, or in
extrapolating their meaning through interventions and associations,
plays a significant role in her creative impetus. The oft-repeated
forms of channels or hallways in her compositions echo the need
to serve as a passageway and to conceive of the practice of art
as a place of mediation.
At the juncture of ideas and intuitions, where the plurality
of techniques is made richer, Whittome explores the wealth of
myriad media. From the already printed page, to the sheet of Japanese
paper that absorbs the fluidity of ink or walnut stain, to large
format digital prints, she multiplies the means by which she can
intervene. Abolishing the distinctions between painting and sculpture,
drawing and photography, Whittome underscores the importance of
the engraving, the very first mark made on a surface, in the most
primal way of expressing her work.
In step with modern tradition, Irene Whittome is interested in
materials that ensure the dissemination of art. She is fascinated
by the concepts of museum and exhibition, the notions of collection
and series, and this interest is paired with an ecological preoccupation
with the artistic system. Early on in her career, the artist chose
to base her approach on the paradigm of repetition. The use of
the paradigm was confirmed and subsequently transformed into a
permanent recycling of her works, aimed at underlining the symbolic
power of materials, colours and forms. The associated works thus
form a whole. What is particularly captivating in Whittome's
approach is her desire and ability to continually reformulate
the same ideas and patterns, thereby adopting a unique approach
that has multiple declensions. The same subjects, constantly repeated,
constitute a rich and singular vocabulary nourished by elements
drawn from a repertoire that, while universal, is endlessly revised
by that most powerful of mediators – the eye of the artist.
Laurier Lacroix teaches art history and museology at the Université
du Québec à Montréal. His field of expertise
is historical Canadian art (Ozias Leduc, Suzor-Coté). He
also curates exhibitions and writes articles on the work of contemporary
artists.
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