42.3516° N, 107.4573° W, at 30,000 ft, colored pencil on paper, 22 x 30 inches, 2024
John Whitten is a multidisciplinary artist, web developer, educator, and community organizer based in Portland, Oregon. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, earning him various residencies, grants, and awards. John is the director of Well Well Projects, an artist-run collective gallery he co-founded in 2021. In 2018, he co-founded Carnation Contemporary, another artist-run collective gallery, as well as Thunderstruck, a nomadic artist residency and exhibition project.
John’s drawings focus primarily on landscapes where he has completed a physical or emotional journey. By rendering digital photographs of these places through meticulous drawing techniques, he explores the parallels between the breakdown of digital images into pixels and drawings into individual marks. Using a digital projector, John translates his photographs into hand-drawn graphite and colored pencil marks, guided by the abstraction inherent in pixelated grids and halftone processes. Combining traditional drawing methods with digital tools, John’s work investigates the dynamic relationship between technology, materiality, and the human experience.
40.3573° N, 74.6672° W, colored pencil on paper, 22 x 30 inches, 2024
44.6498° N, 120.2667° W, colored pencil on paper, 23 x 30 inches, 2023
46.2496° N, 122.1369° W, graphite on paper, 22 x 30 inches, 2022
46.2956° N, 122.2522° W, graphite pencil on paper, 22 x 30 inches, 2022
Cabin Interior, graphite pencil on black paper, 22 x 30 inches, 2020
Lunar Eclipse, colored pencil on black paper, 12 x 18 inches, 2020