b'Stanley WhitneyBorn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1946, Stanley Whitney studied at the Columbus College of Art and Design and the Kansas City Art Institute before receiving his MFA from Yale in 1972. He contested most of the periods aes-thetic tendencies by insisting on abstract painting at a time when it was con-sidered close to dead. Among his inspirations are Piet Mondrian, Giorgio Morandi, and the quilters of Gees Bend, Alabama. Whitneys painting process, he has said, advances without a plan, his colors leading him in a sort of call-and-response : he starts in the canvass upper left corner, paints a block of color, then follows it with another, which affects his perception of the first, and so on, until he has produced a loose, rhythmic, wobbly grid of juxtaposed fields of color. Although the elements and structure seem simple, the variations in colors, tones, and textures are endless and unexpected. Paint is sometimes thick and opaque, sometimes matte, sometimes glossy, sometimes applied in thin washes that allow hints of underlying colors. Each painting is simultaneously reduced and proof of the possibilities of painting. The circular color patches in Untitled are inspired by the way paint is placed and worked on the palette before being applied to the canvas. Perhaps Whitney wanted to show the sheer joy and beauty he saw in pure paint. Exhibited in :Stanley Whitney : Radical Times, Lisson Gallery, London, May 20July 2, 2016Literature /Press :Stanley Whitney, published on the occasion of Stanley Whitney : Radical Times, London : Lisson Gallery, 2016Deep Water, 2016Oil on linen154 243.8243.8 cm'