Jillian Whitney

This body of work is informed by the five years I spent teaching and combines self-portraiture, personal anecdotes, and a variety of surfaces to investigate violence in schools. These works explore the violence prevalent in education while allowing me to process my time as a K-12 public school teacher. Visual metaphors heavily obscure the specific events behind each painting. I create these works because issues such as school shootings, unsupportive work conditions, and gender inequality make it nearly impossible for schools to be what they should be: an equalizing, safe place where children can learn. Ultimately, this weakens the school system and harms the public interest. In my research, I identified two dichotomies contributing to this. The first is the tension between the teacher as the martyr vs the teacher as the “bad actor.” Teaching is a notoriously underappreciated, under-compensated job, where teachers are expected to perform duties beyond their job out of a desire to “make a difference.” This leads to teacher burnout and an increasing number of teachers leaving the profession. At the same time, this sanctification of the teacher allows “bad actors” to more easily access children with less scrutiny. The second is the institutional system vs the individual experience. Economic disparity, racism, and sexism all contribute to creating an institution that does not serve the best interests of individual students and teachers. In my “Lined Paper” series, I worked on notebook paper, focusing on the moments between teachers and students that are sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes sweet, and often somewhere in between. For example, “I Used to Want to be a Teacher” references a conversation with a student about how discovering the teacher they admired was a pedophile affected them. Meanwhile, “Polk-Dot Dress” references a sweet, little moment when a first-grader said I looked like a starfish. My “Moments Not Left Behind” series is comprised of intimate gouache paintings on paper and focuses on how institutional systems affect teachers. I consider them a blend between an editorial and a fairytale, based on specific events, but initially softening the horror with fantastical settings. In my “Administrator” series, I created paintings that reference traditional paintings of superintendents and presidents that line the halls of schools. To create work that seems more institutional compared to the rest of my work, I painted with oil paint on copper leaf over stretched canvas. This series currently has four paintings and will expand to an eight-painting series depicting the highest-level administrator at every school I have ever worked at or attended. All eight paintings will be men.