Elemental: Earthen

Tim Whiten’s prolific and dynamic creative practice reflects a life devoted to an inquiry into metaphysics, the nature of consciousness, alchemy and the human condition. This solo exhibition features a selection of early to recent work – from the beginning of the 1970s onward – alongside several antiquities generously loaned from the McMaster Museum of Art. Together, these objects create a space to explore Whiten’s ongoing engagements with the fundamental composition of the universe and who/what we are as human beings. Whiten’s use of charged materials is skilled and precise – he frequently works with glass, a precarious medium, highlighting its luminosity and transparency as a key to infinity and divine knowledge. He also employs base materials such as iron and stone, which slowly yet profoundly change form over time simply by interacting with essential elements found on our planet.

Elemental is part of an expanded, multi-venue retrospective and collaborative publication celebrating Tim Whiten’s extensive career, developed in partnership between the Art Gallery of Peterborough, Art Gallery of York University, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and McMaster Museum of Art from 2022 to 2023. This series of exhibitions is thematically united by the classical elements of air, water, earth, and fire, a reference to Whiten’s interest in alchemical practices. Elemental: Earthen focuses on the element of earth and its associations with home, sustenance, power, transformation and alchemy.

Earthen is derived from the name of our planetary home, the ground we tread and are fed from, and the material, earthenware, of which early humans made their first vessels. Whiten’s drawings and sculptural work reflect an energy of permanence and infinity through their materiality. Pre-Cambrian shield stone, cast iron and sandblasted glass, are juxtaposed with materials that emit a softness and fragility, including coffee-stained hospital sheets, pillows, a dried snake – that is both known and felt. As humans we are here only for a short while corporeally, and so the included antiquities from 8-100 BCE present an expanded timeline from which to understand the cyclical nature of healing, renewal and transformation of forms which Whiten has engaged with thematically through his cultural objects.

The Art Gallery of Peterborough gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council