The directors of Opera Gallery have announced two major exhibitions – in London and in Paris – by the acclaimed British artist David Kim Whittaker.
The first, entitled The Flesh to the Frame (Part I: In the Existence), will take place at Opera’s Mayfair premises, opening October 2nd, and the Paris show – (Part 2: The Primal Vortex of Us) – will follow later in the month at the gallery’s Paris space, opening October 26th.
The London presentation – Whittaker’s first solo show with the gallery – is comprised of more than 40 large, medium and small-scale oil and acrylic works. While a number of these featured in the artist’s summer solo exhibition at the Fondazione Mudima, Milan, the majority have been created especially for these presentations.
Most of Whittaker’s paintings are based around an interpretation of the human head and its metaphysical core. These portraits often juggle duel states of inner and outer calm and conflict – offering a glimpse of strength and fragility, the conscious and subconscious, the masculine and the feminine. These opposites are arguably reinforced by the artist’s gender dysphoria, a condition where one’s physical body does not match their deeper identity.
This personal struggle, which saw Whittaker ‘come out’ 9 years ago, is a condition he/she has learned to live with through the endeavour of expressing something bigger than oneself through painting.
