Whitney Claflin
Whitney Claflin
b. 1983 Providence, RI
Lives and works in New York, NY
Whitney Claflin’s paintings are imbued with both the duration of their making and details of the artist’s lived experience. Her abstractions comprise a swell of deliberate and strategic marks plotted over time, testifying to memory and mood. Foundational to Claflin’s diverse surfaces is a robust vocabulary of paint handling—while some of her paintings minimally employ the drawn line to activate blank space, others accrue a variety of gestures to form crackling, atmospheric fields of color. Paintings are often accessorized with the artist’s jewelry, adorned with lines of her poetry, or emblazoned with brand names that circulate through her daily life (Juul, Sour Diesel, Etnies, the obscure fashion labels of Savers thrift stores). This adjacency to personal identity is reinforced in Claflin’s poetry, performances, and installations. Her exhibitions are lit with multicolored Christmas lights to match her studio, equipped with bottles of Cointreau or Tanqueray, scored by Soundcloud mixes, or host to weekly events in which Claflin makes grilled cheeses on hot plates. The resulting practice toggles between an update of modernist schemas on canvas—warped grids, deadpan monochromes, dappled abstractions betraying Impressionist lineage—and a broader exercise in contemporaneity dating to the 1990s—relating a painting to the lifestyle and milieu that cultivate it.
EDUCATION
| 2009 | MFA, Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT |
| 2005 | BFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI |
| 2004 | Yale Norfolk School of Music and Art, Norfolk, CT |
SELECTED SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
| 2025 | I was wearing this when you met me, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY |
| 2024 | Pinky's Where?, Derosia, New York, NY Die Nacht, Drei, Cologne, Germany Why Limit Happy to an Hour?, Haus Erholung, Mönchengladbach, German |
| 2022 | Stabler Horizon, duo exhibition with Rochelle Feinstein, conceived in collaboration with Fabrice Stroun, Drei, Cologne, Germany |
| 2020 | ADD SHOT, Bodega (Derosia), New York, NY By All Means You Can Have Two Halloweens, Drei, Cologne, Germany |
| 2019 | Galeria Half Moon, with Phung-Tien Phan, Drei, Cologne, Germany Lo, Central Fine, Miami Beach, FL |
| 2018 | Infinity Pool, 576 Morgan Ave, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2017 | Just Disco, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2016 | Have You Ever Met A Mime So Real?, The Lasting Concept at Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA |
| 2015 | Super Killer Instinct, Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI |
| 2014 | Crows, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2012 | As Long As You Get To Be Somebody’s Slave, Too, Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, NY BITTE (collaboration with Brendan Harman), Terminal Projects, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2010 | Nothing to Blame But Gemini, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY |
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
| 2024 | Ten Thousand Ugly Inkblots, Schiefe Zähne, Berlin, Germany micasa, curated by Nick Irvin and Amalia Ulman, Upper West Side, New York, NY Concerning Jealousy, curated by Charlotte Berg and Jackson Beyda, Scherben, Berlin, Germany Song for the Homesick, curated by Benjamin G. Scott, Lamontes Belly, Dallas, Texas A Small Land of Watery Light, Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, China |
| 2023 | Holly Village II, Derosia and GEMS, New York New Acquisitions II, Sammlung Hildebrandt, G2 Kunsthalle, Leipzig, Germany Dowsing, curated by Nick Irvin, Layr, Vienna, Austria Yes, But I Don't Recognize Your Voice, Blind Spot, New York, NY Brick Wall, Derosia at Bel Ami, Los Angeles, CA Basic Fit, Office Baroque, Antwerp, Belgium A Crooked World, Drei, Cologne, Germany |
| 2022 | Jahresgaben, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany Tiere, Catherine Zeta/MD-Bar, Cologne, Germany Wait, where did I leave my keys?, curated by Whitney Claflin, Drei, Cologne, Germany Les Beaux Jours, Clearing, Brussels, Belgium |
| 2021 | Landscape, Bodega (Derosia), New York, NY -CORE, Sandy Brown, Berlin, Germany |
| 2020 | Dear Delia, curated by Ebony Haynes, Shoot the Lobster, New York, NY |
| 2019 | Holly Village, curated by James Michael Cardoso Shaeffer, Bodega (Derosia), New York, NY Vista View, curated by Caleb Considine, Galerie Buchholz, New York, NY |
| 2018 | All’estero & Dr. K.’s Badereise nach Riva: Version B, curated by Saim Demircan, Croy Nielsen, Vienna Painting Now and Forever, Part III, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, NY Soul is a Four Letter Word, curated by Cody Goebl, Museum Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Communauté, EVAC, London, Ontario, Canada |
| 2017 | FOTG, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, NY ak tu pięknie i niech cię nigdy nie zapomną, curated by Rózsa Farkas, Dawid Radziszewski, Warsaw, Poland New Human Agenda, organized by Cloud Burst Advisory & Eli Ping, ANDNOW, Dallas, TX Option to the Death Of Freedom, Casemore Kirkeby, San Francisco, CA The world is waiting for the sunrise, TCB, Melbourne, Australia Über ein Glas Wein, 67 Steps, Los Angeles, CA The Enclosed Sun, organized by Elisabeth Ivers and Olivia Shao, Doyers, New York, NY Works on Paper: 1813-2016, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, NY |
| 2016 | Mortal Sequence, curated by Heather Guertin, Brennan & Griffin, New York, NY Zombie Formalism, ca. 1970/2016, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, NY Real Fine Arts Presents, 809 Washington St, New York, NY Works off Paper, curated by Harry Burke, SALTS, Birsfelden, Switzerland An Increasingly Desperate Man, curated by Quintessa Matranga, Alter Space, San Francisco, CA |
| 2015 | Some Gallerists, ML Artspace @ the duck, Berlin, Germany The Peoples Biennial, curated by Bradley Kronz, 10-01 44th Rd, Long Island City, NY Group Show, Real Fine Arts, New York, NY Required Ubiquity, Raucci/Santamaria, Naples, Italy The Subjects of the Artist, curated by Alex Bacon, Michael Thibault, Los Angeles, CA |
| 2014 | Perfume, Jan Kaps, Cologne, Germany |
| 2013 | The Return of the Icicle to the Evening at Le Potage De Madame Zazouf, Jack Chiles, New York, NY Real Time and Outer Life, Young Art, Los Angeles, CA |
| 2012 | Steel Life, Michael Benevento, Los Angeles, CA |
| 2011 | Of Certain Instability, Thomas Erben, New York, NY |
| 2010 | Handshakes, Thomas Erben, New York, NY |
| 2009 | The Open, Deitch Projects, Long Island City, NY |
| 2007 | Space is a Place, curated by Rob Halverson, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, OR |
SELECTED PERFORMANCES AND READINGS
| 2025 | Marathon Poetry Reading, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY |
| 2023 | Segue Reading Series, Artists Space, New York, NY |
| 2022 | Food & Spirits, with a performance by Maggie Lee and refreshments, Loong Mah, New York, NY Food & Spirits, Drei, Cologne, Germany |
| 2019 | Wild Flesh Productions, Montez Press Radio, New York, NY |
| 2017 | Raised in a Jail, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY IMPULSE, Lomex, New York, NY |
| 2016 | Asking for a Friend, 50 Taaffe Place, New York, NY |
| 2015 | IMPULSE, Artists Space Books & Talks, New York, NY I Miss You Already 2, Mathew NYC, New York, NY |
| 2014 | IMPULSE, Doyers, New York, NY Délire: Selected Readings of Antonin Artaud, Emily Harvey Foundation, New York, NY |
| 2012 | Tropismes Session III: Portrait of Dora, JACK, Brooklyn, NY IMPULSE, Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2011 | Frangible, Blonde, the Van/ MAY OR MAY NOT, Venice Beach Boardwalk, Venice, CA |
PUBLICATIONS
Food & Spirits (2nd edition), Song Cycle, 2025
Some Poems Written and Read by Whitney Claflin, Viseu.Us, Volume 02, 2025
Food & Spirits, Song Cycle, 2022
Police Heads, Dasmundt, 2015
WRITING
Juliana Huxtable’s Interfertility Industrial Complex, Topical Cream, November 19, 2019
A Synthesis of Intuitions, Adrian Piper at MoMA, Topical Cream, June 28, 2018
Nancy Lupo: Parent and Parroting, Topical Cream, April 6, 2016
SELECTED PRESS
The New York Shows You Need to See this Spring, Sam Falb, Elephant Magazine, April 4, 2025
Whitney Claflin Explores Memory, Material and Transformation in First Solo Museum Exhibition at MoMA PS1, Kristen Tauer, Women's Wear Daily, April 1, 2025
Whitney Claflin: Forever young, Jonathan Stevenson, Two Coats of Paint, October 2024
Manhattan Syndrome: A Survey of New York Trends, Sean Tatol, Manhattan Art Review, September 2024
Whitney Claflin's safe and unbound spaces, Laura Arafeh, Topical Cream, November 30, 2023
Whitney Claflin, Rochelle Feinstein, Camila McHugh, Artforum, July 2022
Openings: Whitney Claflin, Domenick Ammirati, Artforum, May 2021, Print
ADD SHOT: Whitney Claflin at Bodega, Laura McLean-Ferris, Topical Cream, January 6, 2021
A Delian Mode: Dear Delia, Israel Lund, The Brooklyn Rail, April 2020, Print
Helter Shelter: Domenick Ammirati talks to artist Whitney Claflin, Domenick Ammirati, Artforum, March 27, 2020
Holly Village, Paige K. Bradley, Artforum, September 27, 2019
The September Openings: New York’s Must See Shows, Dean Kissick, Cultured Magazine, September 4, 2019
Editor’s Picks, Nate Freeman, Artnet News, September 9, 2019
A Guide to the Best Shows in Cologne, Moritz Scheper, Frieze, April 11, 2019
Vista View, Andrea K. Scott, The New Yorker, April 8, 2019, Print
Painting: An (Incomplete) Survey of the State of the Art, Roberta Smith, New York Times, August 2, 2018, Print
Fear, Punishment, and Boredom: Whitney Claflin at RFA, Topical Cream, March 17, 2017
5 Young Artists to See in New York Right Now, Christie Chu, Artnet News, February 20, 2017
Zombie Formalism, The New Yorker, December 19, 2016, Print
Whitney Claflin, Nicholas Chittenden Morgan, Artforum, November 2016
The Ones To Watch, Christopher Bollen, Interview Magazine, December 2, 2015, Print
Art in the Dead of Winter, Andrew Russeth, ArtNews, January 29, 2015
I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea: The Appeal of Home and Studio Galleries, Andrew Russeth, ArtNews, November 21, 2014
Baby it’s cold outside, David Everitt Howe, ArtReview, February 2014
On View: ‘Whitney Claflin: Crows’ at Real Fine Arts, Andrew Russeth, NY Observer, January 15, 2014
Whitney Claflin, Bosko Blagojevic, Artforum, January 2014
Slant: Best of 2012, Beau Rutland, Artforum, December 13, 2012
Art Fairs, Full of Bling If Not Fire, Roberta Smith, The New York Times, December 13, 2012, Print
Whitney Claflin: As Long As You Get To Be Somebody’s Slave, Too, Jonathan Goodman, The Brooklyn Rail, July 2012, Print
The Listings, Roberta Smith, The New York Times, July 5, 2012, Print
Like Watching Paint Thrive, Roberta Smith, The New York Times, June 29, 2012, Print
Whitney Claflin: When There’s No Starbucks Nearby, Ashley Simpson, Interview Magazine, June 28, 2012
Post Impressions: Regifting, Mary Jones, Bomb Magazine, October 18, 2011
Whitney Claflin, Gene McHugh, Post Internet, May 13, 2010, Print