Latest Work from Evan Whale

The work you're looking at exists within a strange space. It’s not all photography, not quite painting, and not quite drawing. They are prints that have been meticulously destroyed, either through carving or chemical alteration; each subjected to a subtractive gesture that reveals latent color beneath the surface.

The markings come from a place of deep-seated anxiety surrounding the seismic nature of my adopted home of Southern California. For years I’ve been torn between the effortless draw of what I consider ‘paradise found’ with the broader realities of what will all too soon become ‘paradise lost.’ To educate oneself on the geological makeup of California is to question why anyone might take the risk of living in a space so prone to catastrophe. And yet the enduring threat of a sudden tectonic shift is what makes California untouchably sublime—beauty plus anticipatory terror.

There’s terror in geological indifference, and it’s something that most people choose to ignore. I’ve chosen to run at it full speed, embracing it, studying it, even transcribing it. Each of my carvings are based on seismic readings from fault lines that run under the sites I photograph, creating a multitude of surface ruptures that speak to a much larger and far more destructive rupture to come.

Alien Ocotillo (Anza-Borrego Desert), 2018

Chemigram on C-Print, Static Mount, Optium Museum Acrylic, Walnut Artist Frame

48 5/8 x 30 5/8 Inches

Unique

$5850

Resting Palm (Pacific Plate, Del Rosa), 2017

Carving and Chemigram on C-Print, Static Mount, Optium Museum Acrylic, Walnut Artist Frame

35 1/2 x 24 1/4 Inches

Unique 

$4450

Field Note, White Wolf Fault, 06/02/2016, 06:15pm, 2017

Carving on C-Print, Static Mount, Optium Museum Acrylic, Walnut Artist Frame

38 5/8 x 30 5/8 Inches

Unique

$5150

Field Note, Calico Fault, 02/19/2017, 05:12pm, 2017

Carving on C-Print, Static Mount, Optium Museum Acrylic, Walnut Artist Frame

29 5/8 x 21 5/8 Inches

Unique

$3800

Seismic Moments From Flash Peak, 2017

Carving on Photogram (C-Print), Static Mount, Optium Museum Acrylic, Walnut Artist Frame

60 5/8 x 24 3/8 Inches

Unique

$6250