Artist Statement and Downloadable CV/Résumé

Downloadable Versions - Artist Statement::  Acrobat PDF  /  MS Word DOC
Downloadable Versions - CV/Résumé:  Acrobat PDF  /  MS Word DOC


“My Artwork reveals, connects, and evokes.”

--Arolyn Archuleta Whitney

As an artist, Arolyn has made a commitment to raising the human spirit by creating social change through visual narratives she calls “soulscapes.” Her creations exhibit individual style, refined techniques, timelessness, and enter the Modern Art discourse through their bold use of colors, light, imagery, and movement.

Artist’s Statement & Process: Primarily, I use Abstract Expressionism to create a landscape of imagery.  My methodology includes: non-referential pooling, referential images, deliberate pouring/texturing, waiting, and cultivating layers to deliver bold aesthetic tapestries.  I combine different media in order to achieve new textures, colors, and effects.  Although I mostly work in acrylics, I also use oils, oil sticks, alkyds, textured mediums, impasto gel mediums, enamels, pastels, oil pens, metallic paints, and metals.  Beyond the technical, I paint from the premise that we all connect intuitively through visual imagery.  Art preserves pieces of our history, connecting us through its visual narratives.  This process traces back to the first visual stories and imagery known to our species, as preserved on cave walls.  Art is innate to our mind-body-spirit connections and this gift is honored in my creations.  I like to invent and depict the visual world between subconscious and conscious experiences.  I also like to paint simple expressions of the world around me: people, places, nature, feelings, and the energy they convey through me as a conduit.  Whatever the viewer brings to the art viewing experience is unique and is the most essential ingredient to the art process, as this often reveals/connects their own history and context.  Art expands us and I am grateful to grow, learn, and be able to give back to the world through painting.

A major theme in my Artwork is depicting the physical and emotional flux of life. 
I believe we all have an innate ability to reflect, grow, and change.  Whenever we create something new, energy is transformed from one thing to the next: altering the molecular structure, forms, and surfaces.  My grandfather called this, “Atomism.”  Ultimately, energy never dies; it TRANSFORMS.  We are not static, nor are the views of people, or our cultures.  We learn to adapt, change, explore, and share in the dance of life.  My childhood and young adulthood were spent in Taos, New Mexico in a community of accomplished, worldly, and inspired artists and teachers.  Today, my artistic emergence is about being my authentic/curious self: taking risks internally and externally through art, regardless of fears.  I find they transform positively when I just wade right in and trust in the journey.  I’ve lived in Portland since 1998, and I love the flavor that it has brought into my life and paintings.  I hope you will make a connection with my work, yourself, or something new through art.  It is meant to reveal, connect, and evoke. 
Thank you.




 

Arolyn at a solo exhibition in Portland, Oregon 2010.