Upcountry Shadows and Sun, 14" x 21"

Roger will have four paintings of up-country Maui in a show called "Contemporary Hawaiian Landscape Painting" at the Andrew Rose Gallery in downtown Honolulu at 1003 Bishop Street (andrewrosegallery.com). "With gallery artists Noreen Naughton, Linda Kane and Andrew Rose and invited artists Mark Kadota, Russell Lowrey, Nick Black, Roger Whitlock, Dennis Escat, Debbie Young, Sharon Sussman, and Arthur Johnsen. Featuring original images building on the tradition started by the Volcano School then exemplified by Hitchcock, Walden, Norris, and Pohl, this group of museum-quality artists form the next wave of leading landscape painters from the Islands. From innovations in color and content to virtuosity with materials and skills, these never-before-seen large, medium and small pieces all made within the last year engage the challenges of this familiar genre and envision an interconnected map for the future direction of Hawaiian landscape painting." The exhibition will run from Monday, April 15 to Friday, June 28, 2013. Artist's reception is Thursday, April 18, 2013,  5 - 8 pm..

Flags Above Grand Central, 21 x 11

Since late last fall, Roger has been painting a series of paintings of mid-town Manhattan in the rain. He spent two days in NYC on his way back from Europe at the end of September 2012. Those paintings were at the Gallery at Ward Centre in a show called "One Rainy Day in Midtown, Recent Paintings of Manhattan." The show ran from February 23 - March 27, 2013. To see the paintings in the show, go to Paintings and click on "A Rainy Day in Midtown." To see the paintings that he did of Paris in September and October, go to Paintings and click on "Paris 2013."

Upcountry Sunset   14 x 21

In early August 2012 Roger was on the island of Maui teaching a painting workshp for Hui No'eau.  The Hui is located near the town of Makawao, 1600 feet above sea level on the slopes of Haleakala, a 10,000-foot volcano.  He was inspired by the incredible mountain landscapes and vistas.

This coming fall he will be painting in England and France.

Waimea Plantations #6   14 x 10

Roger has completed a series focusing on the old plantation houses at Waimea Plantation on the island of Kauai.  To see the series, go to Paintings and click on "Island Landscapes."  

Tulip Time, Skagit Valley 5     17.5 x 14

In early May 2012, Roger traveled to the Pacific Northwest and spent a day in the Skagit Valley, 60 miles north of Seattle.  The Skagit is well known for its bulb farms, and the tulips were at their brilliant best.  It was a mostly overcast day and the gray skies set off the beautifully colored fields.  During the weeks after his return to Honolulu, Roger painted nearly a dozen paintings of the tulip fields.  To see them, go to Paintings and click on "Tulips, Skagit Valley, 2012."

Italian Studies 9 (Florence)

During the fall of 2011, Roger traveled and painted in northern Italy, primarily in Tuscany and Liguria. An exhibition called "October Light, Recent Paintings of Italy" ran from April 28 to May 25, 2012 at the Gallery at Ward Centre in Honolulu.  Most of the paintings from the exhibit are on this website under Paintings, "October Light, Recent Paintings of Italy." Also new is the category "Paris, 2011," which includes recent paintings of the City of Light.

In the summer of 2011, Roger taught two workshops called "Into the Light," the first at the Art Center of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the second at the Hui No'eau Visual Arts Center near Makawao, Maui. It had been eleven years since he'd been to Maui, nearly twenty-five since he'd been to up-country Maui. He'd forgotten how beautiful it is on the slopes of Haleakala, where the air is constantly washed by showers drifting down from the summit of the ten-thousand-foot peak. Recent paintings of Maui are now in the Gallery at Ward Centre and on this website (look under "Paintings, Island Scenes)."

Stockton St., 17.5 x 14

Roger spent nearly a week in San Francisco in early March, 2011.  After his return to Honolulu, he did many paintings of the city by the bay, which he exhibited in a show called "Everyone Loves San Francisco" at the Gallery at Ward Centre, July 29 to August 25, 2011.

  Entering Plaza Mayor, 14 x 10

Roger showed his paintings from Spain in a show titled "Mostly Barcelona" at the Gallery at Ward Center,  January 1 through January 29, 2011.  

  

On Friday, April 3, 2009, the Hawai’i State Senate hosted “Art in the Capitol,” a reception for artists who had works of art in Senate offices. Here Roger is pictured with Sen. Brian Taniguchi, who organized the event. 

 

In 1967, the Hawai’i State Legislature passed the Art-in-State-Buildings Law. Hawai’i became the first state to set aside one percent of the cost of state buildings to acquire and commission works of visual art, which are then placed in or around state buildings to beautify and humanize the built environment. There are now approximately 5,000 works of art in the collection—including well over 100 in State Senate offices.  

 

Roger, who has seven works in the State’s collection, has a 1995 abstract watercolor currently hanging in the Senate Ways & Means Conference Room. It’s appropriately called “in some kind of trouble.

 

from Honolulu Magazine March, 2008 by Andrew Rose

ROGER WHITLOCK

One of Nine Artists to Collect

BORN: Seattle LIVES: Kaimuki CURRENTLY: Instructor of watercolor at the Honolulu Academy Art Center. Watercolors available from $95 to $5,000 at The Gallery at Ward Centre; Fine Art Associates, Honolulu; Cedar Street Galleries; and the Kirsten Gallery, Seattle.  http://www.gwcfineart.com/ga_whitlock.html

SE, Manoa Road, morning, 2007 watercolor, $750.

Roger Whitlock’s watercolors—you may have seen them at Queen’s Hospital, the Halekulani, HECO and Chef Mavro—are disarmingly gorgeous. Watercolor is considered by artists worldwide the most unforgiving medium because of its immediacy; Whitlock takes this challenge and, through quick brushstrokes, makes easy work of it by his virtuoso blending of foreground and background, information and materials. Like the master chef who reinvents steak or potatoes, he mixes up something fresh and ethereal while using old standards like rain on a street or sun across a vineyard. “It’s all about the light,” he says, “about the way it can make you see any subject, even the most mundane, in a new way.”