EFA STUDIO PROGRAM: Member Artists
Whitney Oldenburg
Whitney Oldenburg lives and works in New York. She obtained her Bachelor's from Cornell University and her Master’s from Rhode Island School of Design. Oldenburg was the recipient of Cornell University’s Charles Baskerville Scholarship, the Maharam Steam Fellowship, the Toby Devan Lewis Award, and the Virginia Commonwealth University Fountainhead Fellowship. Oldenburg has been an artist in residence at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Atlantic Center of the Arts with Michelle Grabner, and Materials for the Arts. Whitney Oldenburg is represented by CHART gallery and is preparing for a solo exhibition at the Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art in 2025.
Oldenburg’s work explores the delicate balance and reciprocal impact humans and objects have on one another. Through a post-minimalist positioning, and in the lineage of artists such as Eva Hesse, Lee Bontecou, and Louise Bourgeoise, Oldenburg’s work becomes propositions for understanding control in relation to excess. She is also interested in Georges Bataille’s ideas about desire as a lens to more deeply understand her emotional response to the world in which she is a part of and constructs.
Oldenburg uses natural and household objects to construct armatures, skins, or containers for her paintings and sculptures. The forms Oldenburg creates are political stances, uncategorical and representative of a protest in which the body is implicated.
