about jack mc whorter, artist and curator

Jack McWhorter received an M.F.A. from Kent State University in 1983. Jack was awarded fellowships to attend the Blossom Studio Art Program to study with Elmer Bischoff, Lynda Benglis, Adja Yunkers, Janet Fish, Walter Darby Bannard and Alex Katz. He has been a visiting artist at St. Luca School of Art & Architecture, Brussels, Belgium, The Walworth Barbour American International School in Tel Aviv, and for the Ohio Arts Council. His paintings and works on paper have been exhibited widely including solo and group exhibitions in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Chicago, Flagstaff, New York, Ventura, New Orleans, Beijing, Chengdu, Shijiazhuang, St. Louis, Brussels, Leuven, Overijse, Paris, Glasgow, Tel Aviv and Siena. Since 2000, McWhorter has been Associate Professor of Painting and Coordinator of the Art Department at Kent State University at Stark.

Upcoming Curatorial Projects - The Gallery at Kent State University at Stark - Nationally Recognized Artists

2017         Peaking Through: Recent Paintings, Drawings and Monotypes by Patricia Spergel, September 5-29

2017         In the Whisper of Silence: Paintings by Mona Brody, October 4-27

2017         No Place Is Perfectly Round: Sculpture by Jonas Sebura & Emily Duke, November 1 - December 1

Recent Collaborative Curatorial Projects

2017     Big Idea, The Painting Center, with Jo Ann Rothschild & Sue Collier, New York, NY  (Catalogue)

2016     The Retrieval of the Beautiful, The Painting Center, with Alyce Gottesman & Bill Hutchinson, New York, NY  (Catalogue)

2016     Color Matters, The Painting Center, with Al Peters & James Patrick Reid,  New York, NY  (Catalogue)

Recent Curatorial Projects at The Gallery, Kent State University at Stark, OH

2016     Glade Invaded: Paintings by Marianne Van Lent, The Gallery (Catalogue)

2016     On and Off the Grid: Generating Abstraction: Paintings by Liz Yamin, Emily Berger, Susan Post and Bosilijka Raditsa

2016     Pallable/Sensory/Tactile: New Sculpture by Isabel Farnsworth & Shannon Hines

2015     Divergence:  Sculpture Installation by Claire Murray & Susan McClelland

2015     Supra Ecology: Prints by Taryn  McMahon          

2015     Unorganized Territories: Sculpture by Mark Schatz     

about his work

Many of my paintings begin with the idea of stratification  and fragmentation. The process is operational, where imagery grows through classical ideas of gesture and touch, and in the way paint is applied. The paintings can be seen as contemporary impressions of the constructed world and its impact on or relationship with natural spaces, underscoring our persistent need to understand ourselves through space. The natural space that occurs within the planet's biodiversity includes growing, dying, entropic, and organic systems. In contrast, assembling painted elements can form new constructed spaces, creating the notion of the abstract sublime. My paintings undertake a topoanalysis of spaces that have invited us to come out of ourselves. These could variably suggest biological, chemical, cosmological, or psychological entities undergoing metamorphosis. Metaphorical ambiguities and multiple associations about subject identity and scale, then, are open. The paintings can reveal alternative, even in some ways contradictory logic.

Recent Painting Exhibitions

Slow Formations, The Painting Center, New York, NY

Catalogue - http://thepaintingcenter.org/sites/default/files/mcwhorter_catalogue.pdf

Life On Earth, The WAH Center, Curated by Corneilia Jensen, Brooklyn, NY

Upcoming Exhibitions

Oct 21 - Nov 18, 2017 - Delen van een Geheel / Parts of a Whole, New Gallery of the Cultural and Community Center Leuven, curated by Francis Smets, organized by the City of Leuven, Department of Culture, Belgium

Nov 22, 2017 - Mar 5, 2018 - Engraved Fields, The Canton Museum of Art, Curated by Thomas Wachuas,  Ohio