About

Bio

A self-proclaimed domestic goddess, Gia Whitlock blends art-making and caregiving into a colorful life of food, joy, and play. Whitlock’s mixed media paintings blend her home life and inner thoughts with humor and the absurdity of vivid dreams.

Statement

From our deeply buried secrets of the past, to our purest feelings about the present, dreams can remind us of things we push into our unconscious. Only in a dream can we find ourselves in line for coffee while simultaneously twerking and quilting. It is this kind of hilarious absurdity that drives me to deeply explore my dreams for personal insights and for my paintings. 

Documenting my dream content, collecting images to represent that content, and preparing collage papers informs each painting. The background papers contain layers of paint and printed motifs that complement an overarching domestic theme. Once I have a substantial pile of collage papers, I cover the surface with them in a quilt-like arrangement. Although the paper may not remain completely visible, this layer guides subsequent layers. Life-like imagery from dream content, memory and free association, combines with the colors of emotion and the fragments of memory on the papers beneath. 

The paintings emerge as a visual record of a dream, a daydream, and possibly a mushroom trip smashed together as one thought. Brightly colored objects moving through each other, phallic symbols, and nostalgia equals erotic jellybean sadness.

download CV

.