‘A still and perceptive voice for these complex times. A wonderfully enlightening, uplifting and inspiring read.’ Gus Casely-Hayford, Cultural historian

This exquisite book by artist Whitney McVeigh is compiled of collected writings transcribed from notebooks, journals and letters made over three decades. It includes texts of artists and writers who have informed her work over the years, alongside poems, drawings and photographs by the artist. The book explores far-ranging metaphysical truths and looks at the role symbols and metaphors play in human life. Woven through the pages are hints of the past and an account of the building of a library that took ten years.

’In a way I see the writing as another form of expression for the arrival at a place, another way to grasp what lies beyond. As with drawing, language, as a tool, helps to expand, deepen and drive the creative process – and therefore, more essentially, the imagination.’
Whitney McVeigh

About the artitst

Whitney McVeigh (b. New York, 1968) is a contemporary artist best known for her paintings and installations. McVeigh has travelled extensively and has held residencies around the world, including in Japan, China, Brazil and South Africa, where she developed the body of paintings Archaeology of Memory. Her library installation Divine Rules was displayed at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles in 2018 as part of the exhibition Plato in LA: Contemporary Artists’ Visions, alongside Raymond Pettibon, Huang Yong Ping, Adrian Piper, Jeff Koons, Mike Kelley and Michelangelo Pistoletto. ’The Happenstance of Illumination’, Simon Schama’s recent essay on McVeigh’s work for her solo exhibition Elegy to Nature, Eykyn Maclean Gallery, New York (2018), is published in Wordy, a collection of 50 essays (Simon & Schuster, 2019). McVeigh currently lives in France.

Press release available here.