20 Watercolor artist | APRIL 2019
Creating the
Extraordinary
From the
Ordinary
THROUGH MASTERY OF MEDIUM,
COMPOSITION AND MESSAGE, SOUTH
CAROLINA ARTIST MARY WHYTE EMPLOYS
TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY
PRACTICES TO ATTAIN EXQUISITE,
UNCONVENTIONAL GENRE PAINTINGS.By Robert K. Carsten
I
really just want to create—as best as I can—the people and places
of our times, and I want to do it in a way that’s meaningful,” says
Mary Whyte. “I don’t want just to copy them or do things that
might be conceived as trite. I want them to be as earnest, real and
sincere as I can possibly make them.” Over the past four decades,
having created hundreds of commissioned portraits and
numerous non-commissioned fi gurative paintings, Whyte has achieved
mastery in her technique and process—a method that combines working
from life, memory, imagination and photographs.GENRE PAINTING REGENERATED
In 2007, inspired by a newspaper article on the shutdown of a textile
mill, Whyte began a three-year painting campaign across 10 Southern
states, depicting workers from vanishing industries. She painted and
sketched, and learned about the lives of ordinary blue-collar workers,
from elevator operators to crabbers, sponge divers and more. An extraor-
dinary exhibition, “Working South: Paintings and Sketches by Mary
Whyte,” resulted from the series, and it traveled to fi ve museums.
One of the keys to Whyte’s success is that her artistry goes beyond
mere documentation of reality. She’s able to depict her subjects’ inner
qualities—their pride, strength of will, resilience, and hopes and
dreams—all caught in a weathered face, a meaningful gesture or
skilled hands that reveal the hardships of a worker’s life.Lovers (watercolor on
paper, 44¼ x44¾)