jonathan whitehall

Jonathan Whitehall is an artist with a deep fascination for literature, poetry, cinema and cultural history. He works with drawing, printmaking, text, and moving image. After completing a Fine Art degree at Goldsmiths College in London, he continued to study for a Masters degree in Feminism and the Visual Arts, and completed a PhD by practice at the Royal College of Art.

His work involves reframing memories, and includes fragments of texts from films, literature and popular media. Removed from their original context, these become poetic reflections. Whitehall reveres the beauty of hand-writing, and uses layers of different media such as monoprinting, pencil and chalk under and over-painted with thick brushstrokes of inks. Beautifully scribed words are almost etched into the surface of the paper. In solitude, as if highlighting elements of a manuscript, he illuminates his chosen texts.

Often his works conveys a profound despair with contemporary cultural currency, a melancholia expressed in texts such as ‘It has been a long week, so much crying, I no longer see a future’, referencing Kate Bush’s ‘In search of Peter Pan’ (1978). Making public very intimate sentiments, with his back turned to the audience, these texts now appear as graffiti-like revelations, Whitehall becoming a cypher for statements written by others, selected from his vast knowledge of literature and cinema. He reveals them to us all, as if new.

All these sensibilities are expanded in Whitehall’s widely published essays, essential elements within his practice.

Fillingham and Company are working with Jonathan Whitehall on a new print edition for 2025. Follow us on Instagram for updates.