NYAB Event - Mary Whyte Exhibition

Mary Whyte Exhibition

The National Arts Club

This event has ended.

Although I have painted almost all of my life, I consider myself a late bloomer. My early years were spent painting a shopping list of different subjects: landscapes, nudes, flowers, still life, commissioned portraits, and illustrations for children’s books. I was just plain happy to be painting, and grateful that my work helped to pay the bills. While my earliest watercolors and oils were hardly masterful, the hours spent holding a paintbrush helped me to develop my technical skills as well as an eye for composition. Eventually, my paintings would come to look less like the work of others and more like mine.

I have been especially fortunate that my work has been the instrument for many lasting and meaningful relationships. All have given me a life that, as imaginative as I am, I could never have dreamed would be so good.

I have had the privilege of painting the people of our times, and in them have discovered the profound qualities of the unrelenting human spirit. The binding commonness of our emotions is what drives me to keep painting, to keep exploring, and to want to demonstrate that painting a true portrait is far more than just capturing a likeness. Each resulting image, if done with earnestness and compassion, is a collective portrait of us all. - Mary Whyte