MIKE WHITING
Since receiving his MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY in May of 2002, Mike Whiting has developed a substantial profile as a contemporary artist of our times through his solo exhibitions with Plus Gallery, numerous group exhibitions across the US including the major art markets of NYC and LA, major institutional exhibitions in Utah and Colorado, and a wide variety of monumental public art commissions across the country including Denver’s iconic “Rhino” sculpture at the forefront of the city’s most renowned art district.
Pixelated at Denver Botanic Gardens
Plus Gallery Exhibition History
In 2008 Whiting was awarded the second place prize in the annual Colorado Springs exhibition “Art on the Streets,” by juror Adam Lerner, then director of the MCA Denver. Whiting’s first major solo museum exhibition of monumental outdoor works “8-Bit Modern” commenced in 2012 at the BYU Museum of Art, where it remained on view through the summer of 2014.
Mike Whiting’s vocation as an artist achieved peak status in Colorado with “Pixelated” at the Denver Botanic Gardens, a major, unprecedented solo exhibition widely praised as one of 2018’s best in the region. A mighty feather in the cap of Whiting’s nearly two-decade long career, the exhibition was also another landmark in Plus Gallery’s efforts to support artist’s careers through long-term vision and directives. Pixelated’s engaging display of large-format outdoor sculpture occurred following a period when Whiting focused almost exclusively on monumental outdoor works, resulting in an impressive array of forms that reflect the ambitious, cohesive intent behind the artist’s practice. The only Plus Gallery artist to successfully establish deep interest in his public works across the country, Whiting’s showing of smaller-scale forms and wall-based works in the gallery context remain some of the most successful and celebrated over the years. His work have been placed in numerous collection throughout Colorado and the US.
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“In my visual experience Pac-Man came before Donald Judd, Carl Andre or even Mondrian. For me Broadway Boogie Woogie will always be an homage to Pac-Man. My current work explores the visual connection between minimalism and early video games. Video gaming and minimalism arrived at the same visual conclusion through different means and by opposite intentions. Early video gaming, or pixel-based imaging, did not intend to be simple or minimal. It intended to communicate as much visual information as possible. The problem was that the memory available to store that visual information was extremely limited. The images created in early video gaming were so simplified that out of context they are unreadable as representational images. Early video gaming images are, at best, abstractions. They are minimal for lack of technology. Minimalism on the other hand, created objects that were minimal by design and intention Minimalism intend to reduce the art object to its simplest form. Minimalist objects and images are based on formal ideas with no reference to image or outside narrative and have the appearance of a mass produced object. These two separate movements had quite opposite intentions with very similar visual results. My ongoing work explores this connection between early pixel-based video game images. Recent developments include the implementation of dimensional palindromes; sculptural “twins” where the exact same form renders a different relationship to the viewer after surface treatment and flipping the orientation of the second form. These combinations broaden the scope of my post-minimal exploration, seeking to further the aim to create work that finds an area between abstraction and representation.” – Mike Whiting, 2019