Chris Whitefield

Chris Whitefield’s stunningly tight line drawings are rendered by hand in a contemplative process he compares to knitting. He builds off his first foundation lines—challenged by the tension between line and space and exacting fit. This highly detailed ink drawing was created in the early days of the Pandemic. Two drawings from the same series were acquired by the Achenbach Graphic Arts Collection of the De Young Museum in San Francisco.

Whitefield donated this artwork to the Bolinas Museum permanent collection in honor of former museum Executive Director Jennifer Gately and her nine years leading the museum.

Whitefield grew up in Bolinas and returned permanently at the age of 30. In his youth, poet Joanne Kyger encouraged him to produce drawings that she reproduced in issues of the local publication Bolinas Hearsay News. Whitefield studied briefly at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, then focused on lithography and drawing at the Instituto Allende y Bellas Arte in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He later attended the University of New Mexico. But he considers himself self-taught in the art that he creates today. His work was featured in a two-person exhibition at Bolinas Museum.