Art and the American Dream: Interview with painter Davyd Whaley

Davyd Whaley with his painting Heaven and Hell, selected for this years Florence Biennale in Tuscany. The artist recently won the prestigious Public Arts Education award as Los Angeles Volunteer of the Year 2012 for his services to the community.

Looking across to the United States from a moribund Italy, the life of painter Davyd Whaley seems the embodiment of the American Dream. A journey full of transformative change, renewal and even a happy Hollywood ending. From his airy studio in downtown Los Angeles, the artist talks to Jeanne-Marie Cilento

It was in Rome that I first met Davyd Whaley and Norman Buckley, introduced by our mutual friend film director Catherine Cyran from their hometown of LA. Whaley was keen to see the Caravaggios and visit one of the Eternal City's rare new contemporary art museums, the MAXXI designed by Zaha Hadid. Effervescent and passionate about painting, the artist was full of good humour and always keen to get back to drawing.

But the parabola of Davyd Whaley’s voyage to becoming a painter wasn't a simple upward curve. It begins in the American South and like many creative careers, it was not an easy start but one bound by frugality, opposition and confusion. “Childhood was a difficult, lonely time for me,” Whaley explains. “I grew up in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Tennessee. That area of the country was not a haven for the liberal arts."

By the time Whaley was twelve years old, he had developed a severe stammer and was placed in a special class that used art as a form of therapy to overcome stuttering. “I was encouraged to draw as a way of clarifying my thoughts, and to find the words that eluded me. Art became a means of communication. Throughout high school I began to draw and paint and was encouraged by an art teacher who recognised my aptitude.’’

From necessity, Whaley’s early artistic education soon veered off into a completely different direction. With little family support, he needed a way to pay for his education and have a career that could provide an income and stability. He joined the Navy and discovered he excelled at electrical engineering. After a four-year stint in the service on submarines, Whaley went to college and earned his electrical engineering degree at North Carolina State University.

"My canvases like Narcisus (above) are very labour intensive.What makes them unique are the layers created by a tiny filbert brush.I mix the pigments in tiny bowls and write the formula on the back of an index card. The paintings take so much time: up to seven months to paint, two months to dry and three weeks to stretch."

Photograph by Norman Buckley

Today, Whaley says the training helped him as an artist, especially in drawing with perspective, line, scale and dimension. The four years he spent in the Navy also taught him precision and discipline. After his degree, a career as an engineer working in the corporate world followed with executive and managerial positions in large companies around the country before settling in Los Angeles. One of his top jobs included being recruited by Farmers Insurance to design telephone systems and oversee 2,200 employees. 

But Whaley's 20 year career in engineering dramatically came to an end when he had a health crisis eight years ago that forced him to stop. “I had a series of unexplained seizures which made it impossible for me to continue to work as an engineer,” the artist says. “One of the seizures was quite severe, I was in a coma and hospitalized for several days afterwards. The seizures caused some cognitive difficulties, which I still have to a degree, as well as short-term memory loss. I knew I would never work as an engineer again.”

Out of the trauma of this experience grew his real career, the one he had begun as a child. He was back on his creative path, not only as a career but as a way of healing himself and beginning life anew. “I felt that I had an epiphany of some sort,” Whaley says. “Creating art was no longer something I did as an outlet for stress, but became something that consumed me. And my work became bolder and originated from a deeper place. I moved away from figurative painting and more into the world of the abstract.” Much of Whaley's creative work is inspired by exploring the workings of the subconscious in his dreams. He always keeps a journal by his bed to record them for his work. Reading Carl Jung also helped him understand the unconscious mind through the study of dreams, symbols and philosophy and informed his approach to painting. 

"I paint as a way of expressing my feelings. People often say things like: 'I see flowers blooming' and I like that because I feel like my life is blooming. My paintings are often about the joy and passion I feel and I hope that translates into a joyful experience for the viewer. But I also explore my dreams in my paintings, so I hope they evoke a meditative response too."

“I was never interested in dreams before the last seizure," Whaley says. “Now I’ll wake up with a fragment of a dream, an image, or a vague awareness of something I had been dreaming about and I’ll quickly draw it or write it down." Whaley often works with large, unstretched canvases on the floor, piecing together glimpses into his subconscious. His painting's Jungian themes are explored in bold abstract compositions using contrasts of light and shadow and a vivid play of colour.

Whaley’s work began to bloom as his creative and personal life flourished. The artist had found love with television and film director Norman Buckley and they married in the state of California in 2008. Buckley also had had a transformative career change, moving from being an award-winning film and television editor to becoming a highly successful and sought after director of America’s most popular shows including Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl, The O.C, 90210, Melrose Place, The Carrie Diaries, The Client List and Switched at Birth.

“Norman has always understood and supported my choices, Whaley says. "He is my best friend, biggest cheerleader, and confidante. We support and inspire one another in our artistic pursuits. I’ve heard Norman say to people that the art healed me; that I found a creative solution to my health crisis."

When Buckley went to New York to direct Gossip Girl, Whaley came with him and was keen to continue his art studies. Between 2007 and 2011, he studied at the Art Students League with its history of famed abstract expressionists such as Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell. “Quite frankly, the location of the Art Students League was the reason I chose to go there initially,’’ Whaley says. “I needed somewhere other than a hotel room to paint.  When Norman worked in New York, I usually went with him. While he was directing Gossip Girl we were fortunate to stay at the Essex House on Central Park South, a block and a half from the ASL. It worked as a matter of great convenience, particularly since I was carrying heavy drawing boards, panels and canvases along the streets late at night. At least that’s how it started.” 

American director Norman Buckley with actors Leighton Meester and Blake Lively on the set of Gossip Girl in New York. Buckley is Davyd Whaley's spouse: "We support and inspire each other in our artistic pursuits." Whaley attended the Art Students League while Buckley was directing in NY.

While Buckley was on set directing Blake Lively and Leighton Meester, Whaley would go off to class. He studied under Larry Poons and found him a great inspiration. “My morning class would begin around 9am,'' Whaley explains. "There was only me and perhaps one other student who didn’t use easels; and definitely not many that used oil, since Larry painted in acrylics. Larry was definitely vocal if he didn’t like something and he always encouraged us to add more colour. He taught me any good painting must have light. His classes were very enjoyable for me.  He would sit in a large chair in the back and play bluesy country music quite loudly.” Whaley built up more confidence at the ASL with instructors like Ronnie Landfield and with the encouragement of well-known painters.

Whaley continued his studies at UCLA with Max Malansky and Nick Brown from the Chicago Art Institute, participated in group shows and began to teach art. In 2011, he began teaching classes to seniors and underprivileged children in Los Angeles. "I approached the county about creating classes in their community centres because I really saw a need. I was comfortable teaching art but also with drawing up benefit cost analyses." Last year, Whaley won the prestigious Los Angeles Volunteer of the Year 2012 Public Arts Education award. "It is one of my proudest accomplishments," the artist says. "And I just received my grant to continue teaching which I hope to be doing again this summer."

Whaley says even during his engineering career he always drew and painted although his early work was more figurative and linear. "I've never really stopped painting and my new career developed very organically. People started talking to me more and more about my work and I started selling paintings." Whaley's work also began to be featured in art magazines and galleries and on television shows. This year he will participate in the 9th edition of the Florence Biennale, showing his painting Heaven and Hell.

"I usually don’t start out with a clear intent when I start to paint. Most often I am painting from an unconscious level and the meaning emerges. I don’t always know what the paintings mean to me until I’m finished. However, I am a symbolist and I return to certain symbols and themes over and over." Photograph by Norman Buckley

Whaley has a big studio in downtown Los Angeles where he paints every day. "My studio is a haven for me,'' explains Whaley. "It’s a 2000 square foot loft in the Santa Fe Artist Colony. The building used to be a mattress factory in the early 1900s and has 20 foot ceilings and large windows that get early morning and mid-day light. Located in an industrial neighbourhood, there are 57 artists who live and work at the colony.

Davyd Whaley's paintings exhibited at Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's opening party for the Gallery for the People summer show in Los Angeles. Galerie Michael saw the artist's work at the show and put on his new solo exhibition.

Hollywood played another part in Whaley’s growing artistic career when his work was seen by a top Beverly Hills art gallery at the exclusive Gallery for the People summer show hosted by Oscar-winning producer Harvey Weinstein and packed with actors and directors. “The gallery saw my work at the one-night group show last June hosted by Weinstein and benefiting The Art of Elysium, an organisation encouraging artists to dedicate their time to seriously ill children. Shortly after that event, I met Michael Schwarz the owner of Galerie Michael at my studio."

The meeting led to Whaley's big new exhibition at Galerie Michael in Beverly Hills and is the culmination of all of his trials towards becoming a full-time artist. “I was very nervous during the weeks preceding the opening and every ounce of energy was used preparing work for the show. The curatorial staff from the gallery came to my studio a month before the opening to select the pieces that are on display. The gallery chose works that reflect my interest in dreams and the subconscious."

The opening night at Galerie Michael was both a happy Hollywood ending to the artist's early struggle and a new beginning for Whaley's career. Norman Buckley couldn't have directed a better episode to celebrate Whaley's work with a star-studded party full of close friends and colleagues.

Artist Davyd Whaley with Jennie Hiatt and Alex Rich at the opening of his big new solo exhibition at Galerie Michael in Beverly Hills. 

“The opening reception was very exciting,"' Whaley says. "I remember the night flying by. I was trying to talk with everyone, but there were so many people I wasn’t able to speak to anyone very long. The gallery did a special presentation with a short film about me. There were hors d’oeuvres and champagne. I was overwhelmed by the support. It was very moving to me.”

For more information about David Whaley's work and to see a list of his paintings for sale contact Robert Avelleno at Galerie Michael, 224 North Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills CA 90210  www.galeriemichael.com 

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow of Davyd Whaley's paintings

 Heaven and Hell  2012 by Davyd Whaley Oil and mixed media on paper 79x52 inches

Eye on Ewe 2012 by Davyd Whaley Oil on canvas 631/4 x 67 inches

 Orphan Maker 2012 by Davyd Whaley Oil and mixed media on arches 31x25 inches 

Narcisis 2012 by Davyd Whaley Oil on canvas 84 x 62 inches

Provider 2009 by Davyd Whaley Oil on canvas 21x25 inches

Sound of Love 2012 by Davyd Whaley Oil on canvas 21 1/4 x 17 1/4 inches 

 Wishbone 2012 by Davyd Whaley Oil on masonite 24x18 inches 

Mireka Starr 2012 by Davyd Whaley Tempera and ceramic on envelope 13 3/4x10 3/4 inches

Scroll 32# Untitled 2012 by Davyd Whaley Oil on paper  18x24 inches 

Saints 2013 by Davyd Whaley Oil on stretch cloth 30x16 inches

New Architecture: The Cliff House on the Alicante Coast in Spain

Perched like a luminous Corbusian shell on a rocky outcrop above the Balearic Sea, this new house was designed by Spanish architects Fran Silvestre, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Diego Opazo

THE building's dramatic cantilevered silhouette and isolated location on a rocky outcrop suggest a stylish lair from the James Bond films of the 1960s with Sean Connery. Architecturally the smooth, monolithic white form is designed to contrast with the craggy striations of the rugged Alicante coastline. 

Although the clean, crisp lines of the house hark back to early Modernism, the dynamism of the cantilevered top storey floating above the cliff face and the building’s asymmetry give it an interesting contemporary edge. The site was so steep, the architects wanted to keep the main body of the house on one level and to adapt the rest to the land's natural contours. 

The main part of the house forms a dynamic horizontal platform jutting out into space from the rock face. A balcony of 18 metres long hugs the suspended top level of the house with floor-to-ceiling glass doors. The rooms have an unimpeded vista along the coast and out to a seemingly infinite expanse of sea.

Built from reinforced concrete slabs, the house is finished in brilliant white lime stucco creating a strong juxtaposition with the surrounding landscape. The colour also unifies the design and relates to the traditional architecture of Alicante. The building is certainly luxurious with a long, shimmering blue pool on the first level reflecting the sparkling blue sea beyond.  

The low-key, minimalist interior has been kept a muted, pale foil to the dramatic landscape outside and the extraordinary vista of the water. The glazed walls bring the soaring rocks inside and the olive-green bushland seems at your fingertips.

The open plan living and dining spaces are flooded with light from the glass doors that seamlessly slide back to reveal the balcony. Set back from the living area is the all-white kitchen which has everything hidden behind doors including a cooktop and exhaust that rises up from the bench when needed.  

The three bedrooms all have far-reaching views across the coast and sea while the two bathrooms are on the other side of the house and face directly on to rock and scrubby bushland. The completed house is 242 square metres and cost 650,000 euros to build.

For more information about the architects visit: www.fransilvestrenavarro.com

Click photographs for full-screen slideshow

The house lit up at night with the infinity pool merging with the vista of the sea.

Looked at front-on the house juts dynamically out from the hillside towards the sea.

Looking up underneath the cantilevered main floor of the building.

The pool lit up at night and the hidden garage doors open. 

The rocky outcrop in Calp with the house sitting high up on the left just above the coastal bushland.

The house looks anchored to the craggy landscape. 

The falling dusk light is reflected on the glass balustrade of the 18-metre long balcony.

The balcony is an integral part of the house's design and under it's flat roofline.

A view of the house from the hillside showing the cantilevered top floor suspended above the steep slope.

Taking in the view from the stairway that leads down to the pool and garden terrace.

Swimming in the pool with the spectacular view to the rocky outcrop and the sea.

The house has a direct connection to Spain's traditional, white lime-washed buildings. 

The bold architectural form stands out from the rugged landscape but also seems rooted into the earth, it's jutting main storey reflecting the stony crag above it. 

Sculptor Constantin Brancusi's Atelier in Paris at the Pompidou

Mademoiselle Pogany III by Constantin Brancusi 1933 Centre Georges Pompidou

The atelier of Constantin Brancusi shows the culmination of the sculptor's work at the forefront of the French avant-guarde, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento from Paris.

"There are idiots who define my work as abstract; yet what they call abstract is what is most realistic. What is real is not the appearance, but the idea, the essence of things." ~ Constantin Brancusi

Hidden away in the narrow streets crowding around Rue Rambuteau in Paris is the atelier of Modernist sculptor Constantin Brancusi. Italian architect Renzo Piano designed and recreated the sculptor’s studio as it was left in 1957 in a new building tucked in behind the soaring staircases of the Pompidou.

Filled with Brancusi’s most evocative sculptures such as Bird in Space, A Muse and Infinite Columns, the studio is a way of experiencing the artist’s best work. He spent his last years grouping, regrouping and photographing his large works to achieve the ideal spatial arrangement. The Atelier Brancusi is the high-point of the artist’s work and an atmospheric way of viewing his famous sculptures exactly in the context he planned them to be seen. One of the great pioneers of modernism, he is considered the originator of modern, abstract sculpture.

Today Brancusi’s work commands millions - the Yves Saint Laurent/Pierre Bergé sale in 2009 of Madame LR sold for a record 29.185 million euros - yet the sculptor started life as a poor Romanian peasant. While his parents labored in the fields near the Carpathian mountains, Constantin herded sheep and by nine years old was working in the local town at a public house. It is a remarkable leap from this rural, agricultural background to becoming a world-reknowned artist - in his own lifetime. But Brancusi’s natural aptitude for wood-carving stood him in great stead.

As an eighteen year old lover of music and especially Romanian folk songs he created his own violin. It was so well done that a local businessman recognized his latent talent and enrolled him at the Craiova School of Arts and Crafts. He studied wood-working and graduated with honours in 1898. He then went on to receive his academic training in sculpture at the Bucharest School of Fine Arts.

In 1904 he travelled to Paris and arrived amid the French capital's foment of new ideas, becoming part of the Parisian avant guarde of the 1910s and 1920s. The sculptor worked with Auguste Rodin for several months but decided that although he admired his work "nothing can grow under big trees". Brancusi was part of a group of artists and intellectuals that included Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Guillaume Apollinaire, Henri Rousseau and Fernand Leger.

Although Brancusi remained based in Paris for the rest of his life, he still liked to dress simply like a Romanian peasant and his house and studio were filled with the rough-hewn furniture in wood and stone that was familiar from his childhood and that we see today in his atelier. Brancusi's philosophy valued "differentiating the essential from the ephemeral" and Plato and Lao-Tzu were great influences. An idealist and ascetic later in life, visitors to his studio noted its tranquil, spiritual atmosphere.

The Atelier Brancusi has been moved from it’s original location in Impasse Ronsin in the 15th arrondissment but the studio still provides a calm respite from the Parisian hurly-burly outside. The four small studios and workshops are full of Brancusi's carefully arranged series of sculptures and all of his tools that he left to the Musee National D'Art Moderne in 1956. 

For more information visit: www.centrepompidou.fr. 

Click photographs for full-screen slideshow

One of Brancusi's four interconnected studios with his sculptures carefully placed in groups, including Leda and Colonnes sans Fin

Leda ~ polished bronze on a base of black stone and stainless steel ~ 1926

Yves Saint Laurent's Portrait of Madame LR that sold for 29.85 million euros

Constantin Brancusi in his studio in 1934

The studio recreated (above) from the original (below) with Brancusi's series of large works ~ Colonnes sans fin and Grands Coqs. He didn't want to move these as he believed he had found the best arrangement for them to seen as the culmination of his life's work.

Photograph taken in Brancusi's Paris studio in 1929 including the sculptures Léda, Colonnes sans fin I à III and Chimère.

Sculptures organised by Brancusi around the great stone fireplace from his original atelier.

Brancusi's workshop and studio as he left it in 1957 with the famous Bird in Flight in the foreground.

Tools cover the work benches and walls near the forge in Brancusi's studio. The sculptor carved directly into his material whether it was wood, marble or plaster to try and reach the form within. He made or modified many of his own tools and used grindstones and sanders to give a highly polished sheen to his marble and bronze sculptures. 

One of Brancusi's studies for Muse.

Sculptures from left to right are Mlle Pogany and studies for a Muse and Danaide.

The Kiss sculpted in stone in 1923

www.centrepompidou.fr

Paris Exhibitions: Two New Exciting Shows of Modern and Pop Art

A portrait by iconic French artist C215, the moniker of Christian Guémy, at the Beyond Street Art exhibition in Paris

Photographer Andreas Romagnoli travelled to Paris to capture the contemporary art exhibited at two major new gallery shows. Artists from all over the world are represented including emerging talent and France's iconic C215 and England's Banksy, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento.

STREET Art, also called 'outsider' art was born in London. In France it was labelled art brut by French artist Jean Dubuffet. It is an art created 'outside' traditional galleries, often by self-taught artists and sculptors. But it's hard to stay an outsider once you've been discovered by the art market. One of the Paris exhibitions is called Beyond Street Art at the Musée de la Poste. It shows seventy works from eleven different international artists including the French Space Invaders, L’Atlas, Miss.Tic and Ludo and Shepard Fairey and Swoon from the USA.

The artists use a variety of media and techniques and the exhibition includes films illustrating their way of working. The show's exhibits offer an overview of the diversity of methods from stencils, spray paint, mosaic and charcoal to paper cut-outs, resin, engraving, acrylic paint, watercolour and gouache. The art works are also created on an eclectic range of objects and materials including canvas, metal and linoleum and mailboxes, signs and posters.

The evolution of the French street art movement is illustrated at the start of the show, including pictures of work by pioneers such as Ernest Pignon-Ernest and Gerard Zlotykamien from the 1960s. This is followed by the 1980s generation of artists, including Blek Le Rat, Jef Aerosol and Jérôme Mesnager.

Beyond Street Art has a definite focus and shows the different themes and worlds explored by each artist.  Organised by the Musée de la Poste, this exhibition invites visitors to return to the starting point of urban art in France and the United States through the shows extensive photographs and video clips.

New artists and contemporary pop art greats are on display at the Hey! Modern Art & Pop Culture Part II exhibition at the Halle St. Pierre, a former market near Montmartre. In 2011, the founders of the alternative modern art and pop culture magazine HEY! opened their first show dedicated to outsider artists.

This second exhibition showcases sixty artists work that explore the boundaries of modern art and pop-surrealism, often showing a macabre side to contemporary creativity. Works include the Alien sculptures of HR Giger, the finely-woven macrame heads by Jim Skull and Kate Clark's animal-humans (see photographs below). One of twenty five American artists, Brooklyn sculptor Kate Clark exhibits her busts of creatures that appear to be young bucks with human eyes. She is interested in showing the different 'animalities' within us. However, Clark is not 'outside' the art establishment but was trained at Cornell and the Cranbrook Academy. 

The Beyond Street Art and Hey! exhibitions demonstrate an anarchic side to the French capital's art world. A new cultural zeitgeist willing to show different forms of artistic expression that often run counter to the contemporary art market.

Beyond Street Art: Musée de La Poste, 34 Boulevard de Vaugirard, 75015 Paris. Open from 10am-6pm, closed Sundays. It runs until March 30th 2013. Hey! Modern Art & Pop Culture Part II:  Halle Saint-Pierre, 2 Rue Ronsard 75018 Paris. Open from 10am-6pm until August 23rd 2013.

Click on photographs for full-screen slide-show

 Stencil on steel by Miss Tic.

Model Kate Moss represented as an Andy Warhol print of Marilyn Monroe

Mosaic tile head by Space Invaders

The French Miss. Tic's work has captured the attention of top fashion designers

The mystical abstract work of French artist L'Atlas

C215's large portraits exhibited at Beyond Street Art.

Entrance into the darkened first level of the surreal Hey! Pop Art Exhibition