Original Art By Whitney Babin | Ugallery.com

artist statement

In my art, I explore the world in which I live. One will not view my work and see a dramatic or horrific scene because those concepts are abstract to me. My artwork is a personal exploration of my environment. Each individual views his or her surroundings in a unique way. As an artist, I have an opportunity to portray images of my everyday life through my line of vision.

Living in Philadelphia has had a vast influence on my subject matter. My interest in depicting an urban environment gradually developed into a fascination with the city at night, and the depiction of light and motion. For me, the city has always been an intriguing environment. I experience it as something that never sleeps; it seems more like a living organism than a place. During the day, people overpower the city. The buildings become a backdrop to the diverse crowd wielding its way through the streets. However, at night, the city itself comes to life and the people are the backdrop. The lights and the sounds create an atmosphere all their own. This energy of changing light and motion makes it a place of constant interest for me and has created a vast subject for me to work with in my paintings.

While living in the city has given me direct contact with the environment that I am attempting to portray, I mainly utilize photographs as the source for my paintings. In using photography, I have had to be aware of both photography’s and painting’s depiction of reality. Photography captures a flash of a moment, which it can blur and flatten. Painting provides the experience of the event rather than just documenting it. A painting offers a deeper experience than a photograph by utilizing perspective, brushstrokes, depth, light, and dark. The painter has more control of the environment that they are capturing than a photographer does. Therefore, the photographs I work from are merely a reference. In painting a city scene, I am attempting to portray a world or experience for viewers without them ever having to step outdoors.

When one looks down a city block at night, they see dots and blurs or amorphous colors amidst the darkness. In a photograph or in a painting, these vague shapes of color are accepted as representations of buildings or the blur of taillights. The fact that one dot of color in a painting could represent a large city building was what really inspired me to paint night cityscapes. I could depict an entire city with merely a few marks on a canvas. This gave me a freedom to create a world that is as elusive as it is understandable.

My paintings and drawings have given me a way to express my view of the city on a visual level. By showing the viewer glimpses of light, darkness, and motion, I allow the viewer to see the city through my eyes while still accepting the images as a reality. This concept is one that continues to inspire my work and will hopefully generate many more paintings and drawings in the future.