About Priscilla

Priscilla Whitlock smiling and standing next to her easel with a colorful abstract painting on it in an art studio. She is wearing a denim shirt, white pants, and sandals, and has an apron with paint splatters.

Photo by Jen Fariello

I love painting….

“Her “High Water Mark” is a glorious work of barely contained energy. At the top of the painting, off in the distance, there’s a beautifully rendered, rather sedate landscape. Moving downwards, towards the foreground, the brushwork becomes ever more strident and frenetic. Whitlock retains control of the frenzy with marks that are self-assured and powerful, conveying both the physical act of painting and the buzzing life of the body of water and its surrounding grasses she’s depicting. The intense, highly-keyed palette and allover, immersive quality of the work underscore these effects.”

–Sarah Sargent, art critic

Sometimes I start a painting onsite…..just to look

After years of painting, my interest is to interpret landscape. The subject matter is about physicality and energy of the paint and less about landscape as “scenery”. Produced by the painted marks, dashes, swipes of oil and oil stick, shapes and color all come together to represent the mood, light, and sense of place. From a close vantage point the work is most abstract, but viewed from a distance it “comes together” to represent a field, marsh, or “view”.

My artist studio is located near the Blue Ridge Mountains in Albemarle County, Virginia. I also love to work at Wrightsville Beach on the Southern coast of N.C. Dramatic Lunar high tides are accessible only a few times a year, and are accessible only by boat. The marshes flood and bloom, just like a field.

Monotypes: A type of print, not to be confused with a computer generated photo, monotypes are one of a kind print made by hand. "I paint directly on a plate, and transfer the image, by use of a press, to a piece of paper."