Yellow Bowl, 2017
30 x 24 inches | oil on canvas
Whitney Brooks Abbott is a fine arts graduate of UC Santa Cruz. She also completed a fellowship at Yale School of Art in Norfolk, CT. Whitney is a second generation member of the Oak Group based in Santa Barbara since 1986.
Whitney was born in 1972 in San Francisco, CA. At the age of three, she and her family moved to Carpinteria, CA, where she spent much of her childhood drawing the life she found around her on her family’s avocado and lemon ranch.
“Painting, for me, is a celebration of our material world in a very spiritual sense. As a painter, I study the interaction of light against surface, and take this material relationship into the personal world of my imagination. At the same time, working with the very tangible elements of the paint itself, I honor the physical nature of creativity.
“To give to the world by taking from it, is the best way to describe why we make art. Some paintings may be more successful than others. But if, in the process of investigation, we stumble across a new idea, or an old, well used understanding of beauty, the discovery is worth celebrating.”
Driving through the Carpinteria Valley to meet esteemed painter Whitney Brooks Abbott, I notice the abandoned greenhouses on the roadside near her house. They stand there in a ghostly manner, both worn out and defiant, surrounded by the beauty of the natural landscape. Not surprisingly, when I walk in Whitney’s studio, I see “Field Notes,” the main work of her first solo show at Sullivan Goss in five years — a painting of the greenhouses.
With the country battered by the pandemic, a hotly contested election, the nation’s capitol invaded by rioters and an atmosphere marked by dread and hysteria, curators at Sullivan Goss-An American Gallery in downtown Santa Barbara felt this community could use a space for peace and contemplation.
Drawing from its artists’ studios, collector consignments and its own treasure vault, the gallery staff has assembled 16 works spanning from 1890 to today that invite a meditative or peaceful state of mind.
The exhibition is open for socially distant viewing through March 1. Gallery visits are limited to eight mask-wearing guests at a time. The exhibit is also available online.
EDUCATION
University of California, Santa Cruz, B. F. A. June 1994, Art Major, with honors
Yale School of Art, Norfolk, CT, 1993
Cate School, Carpinteria, CA 1990, cum laude
AWARDS & AFFILIATIONS
1992 - William Hyde and Susan Benteen Irwin ScholarshipYale School of Art, Norfolk, CT, 1993
1993 - Yale Summer School of Art Fellowship
1994 - University of California at Santa Cruz, Dean’s Award
2002 - Santa Barbara Arts Fund Individual Artist Award, in painting
PUBLICATIONS
Fine Art Connoisseur, March 2006, “Welcome Spring” 1994 - University of California at Santa Cruz, Dean’s Award
American Artist, September 2006, “The Oak Group, Preserving Natural Landscapes”
Southwest Art, November 2004, “In Their Element”
Southwest Art, September 2002, “21 Under 31”
Santa Barbara Magazine, Winter 2001, “Meet the Family”
EXHIBITIONS
Solo Exhibitions
2024 WHITNEY BROOKS ABBOTT: Field Notes, Sullivan Goss - An American Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2018 WHITNEY BROOKS ABBOTT: Resolution, Sullivan Goss - An American Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2015 solo exhibition, Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2013 solo exhibition, Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2011 solo exhibition, Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2009 “Roads Leading Home,” solo exhibition, Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2007 “Harvest,” solo exhibition, Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara. CA
2005 “The Greening” solo exhibition, Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2003 “Industry and Agriculture,” solo exhibition, Santa Barbara Arts Fund
“Antiphon” solo exhibition, Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
Group Exhibitions
2017 100 GRAND, 2017, Sullivan Goss - An American Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2016 The Oak Group: A Thirtieth Anniversary Exhibition, 1986-2016, Sullivan Goss - An American Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
1994-2018 Santa Barbara Based Oak Group, environmental preservation themed: Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, Santa Barbara, CA
1995-2015 Easton Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2000-2009 Atlantic Gallery, New York, NY
2004-2005 Le Celle Gallery, Fairfax, CA
2005-2009 Trowbridge Gallery, Ojai, CA
1994 Arlington Gallery, Santa Barbara , CA
Faulkner Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
Cabrillo Arts Center, Santa Barbara, CA
Marin Agricultural Land Trust, Nicassio, CA
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, “The Political Landscape”, Los Angeles, CA
