Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies

Artist not rattled by brush with controversy

Amid accusations of censorship after Orlando's mayor had his works removed from City Hall, Jeff Whipple finds success and new interest in his work.

CHANNEL DISTRICT - After years as an accomplished artist, Jeff Whipple wears a mark of distinction: Banned in Orlando.

This summer, Whipple and his paintings became the object of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer's ire.

A few things to know about Dyer: He was born in Orlando and raised in nearby Kissimmee. He likes paintings of Florida's landscapes, cows and horses.

So, when he walked into City Hall as successor to Glenda Hood, he stopped in shock at the new exhibit going up.

A sketch of a man with a telephone cord around the neck.

A drawing of a person with his head in a bureau drawer.

Another of two woman in underwear.

All by Whipple, a Tampa artist in the Channel District.

Dyer immediately ordered a halt. He told the Orlando Sentinel the exhibit was "not my kind of art."

Eventually, the Orlando exhibition was cut to 25 works from the original 68. The exhibit left in August and is now at The von Liebig Art Center in Naples.

Whipple calls the controversy flat out censorship.

Many in the art community back him.

His work "rocks the boat," said Brad Cooper, a longtime Ybor City gallery owner. "But that's what good art is suppose to do."

"It's not up to the mayor to interpret artwork for the general public," said Ken Rollins, executive director of the Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo. "That's not what he's elected to do."

But with censorship comes fame. Newspaper interviews. And a public interested in his art.

Whipple has been producing art ever since he was in grade school. He lived in Chicago for some time and in Sarasota for almost a decade. He moved to Tampa in August 2002 and his work has received - Dyer aside - a lot of attention. A show at the Gulf Coast Museum opened in December to rave reviews.

His art musters up many adjectives: different, interesting, dark.

Mostly "people laugh," he said last week in his Channel District loft. "And then they say, "This is really sick."'

Whipple isn't one of those artist who dresses in black. He isn't covered with tattoos and piercings. He isn't bombastic or loud.

In fact, he's shy.

"I'm not an extrovert," he says.

His loudness comes out in his paintings.

Whipple, 46, was born in the small farming town of Chillicothe, Mo., but grew up in Elgin, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. His father repaired televisions. Whipple grew up with a TV in almost every room - many leftover from the repair shop. Pop culture influenced him.

Whipple drew all the time as a kid. But not everyday objects, now his trademark. He drew dinosaurs, war and space images - things in his head.

He also wrote. One story he penned in fourth grade was about monkeys who ate people.

His creativity entertained his friends, then teachers and finally judges at high school competitions. He finished his first public work in high school, an 8-foot long mural of football players for the athletic department. It still stands.

Whipple received a master of fine arts degree at the University of South Florida, choosing the school because it was near the beach and away from Chicago winters.

All through school, he knew he wanted to make art that represented his vision.

Commercial art "grossed me out," he said.

As an artist, he has held his share of "widget jobs." Office temp, gas station operator. He also worked for a coffin company, loading caskets onto trucks.

But he has never been a waiter. "I was never really personable in that way," he said.

He taught for a while and enjoyed it except for apathetic students. "I had to be a cheerleader," he said. "I shouldn't be."

For several years now, Whipple has been supporting himself as an artist. He's had more than 60 solo shows in Florida, Georgia, Oregon and elsewhere.

He does many commissioned works, such as the portrait he is working on for MacDill Air Force Base. He also has done many public art pieces.

Whipple said he moved to the Channel District artist community because, "I didn't want to live in a big urban environment anymore. It's just too grungy, too repressive. I love certain cultural aspects of a big city, but I didn't like living where people break into your car all the time, where there was a lot of traffic and congestion."

He lives and works in a former restaurant turned living space. Exhaust fans and ducts cover the ceiling. A bar acts like the kitchen.

Nine parakeets in a large cage fill the one-room loft with chirping. "I don't even hear them anymore," he says.

Ideas come to Whipple all the time. And there is no telling where. Like the time he was at a Mexican restaurant. On the walls were paintings of warrior gods, cloaked in armor, atop mountains.

Whipple's mind raced.

Back in his studio, in front of his easel and canvas, he painted his Post Modern Heroes series.

Instead of warriors, he put "ordinary people looking like heroes ... as if they were at the top of the heap."

Instead of a sword: a computer keyboard, a cell phone.

Instead of armor: a ripped tie, a pinstripe shirt.

And on the mound: filing cabinets, coffee cups, a Rolodex.

Because this is Whipple's mind, he didn't stop at office props.

He went to fruits and vegetables.

And hot dogs.

A woman on top of a heap of hot dogs.

He likes hot dogs and has done several paintings of them. "It's an American icon," he said.

The medium for Whipple's creativity isn't just paint and canvas.

He sculpts. One sculpture, The Faller, is of a suited man on his head.

Whipple has also written several plays, including The Meat Bush, about a genetic engineer who discovers a way to make plants grow meat, and The Terrorism of Love, which he began two months before Sept. 11.

Most recently, Whipple finished a 10-minute art video, Boxing Us, which aired recently at the Ybor Festival of the Moving Image.

One scene shows a tomato talking to a grenade.

"Hi, how are you?" says the tomato to the grenade.

"None of your business," says the grenade.

In the end, the tomato squashes the grenade.

Whipple explains the silliness: It is a struggle between what is organic and what is man-made.

In his works, Whipple likes to use models. Sometimes, those models are his friends, such as Pam Marwede and Wayne Genthner, a longtime couple. Not telling them what he had in store, he took pictures of them separately. Then, he painted Domestic Discussion.

It is a take on relationships.

In her hand is a power saw. Her leg punctured and spewing blood.

In his hand is an electric drill. His right leg amputated and bleeding.

Marwede and Genthner, who have been together for 10 years, laughed for 40 minutes when they first saw the painting. And when the life-size painting appeared in a show, they came to the opening with bandages on their legs.

"We thought it was funny," said Marwede, from her Sarasota home. "Jeff has a highly developed sense of humor."

But Domestic Discussion was ordered down from Orlando City Hall. Mayor Dyer called it violent.

"He's too limited," Marwede said of Dyer. "He looked at it and just didn't get it."

- Babita Persaud can be reached at 226-3322 or persaud@sptimes.com

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer put the kibosh on some of Jeff Whipple's artwork this summer, saying it was too violent and dark. He ordered those pieces removed from Orlando City Hall. Here are some of them:

Catalog Girls of two women in underwear.

Poodle Glasses of a woman in a bra wearing sunglasses.

Jeff and Jenny of a man pressing a woman's head down.

Parking Space of a man hitting his head on a city curb.

Portrait of the Artist Strapped to a Vacuum of Whipple standing on a chair with a vacuum cleaner bound to his chest.

JOB: Artist.

AGE: 46.

FAMILY: Single.

COST OF HIS WORK: Less than $20,000, he says.

WHERE TO SEE HIS WORK: Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo and Clayton Galleries in Tampa.

CURRENT SHOW: Jeff Whipple: A Twenty-Five Year Retrospective at The von Liebig Art Center in Naples. Includes pieces that were banned in Orlando. Runs until Oct. 4.

PUBLIC ART: A 150-foot mural of people reading books at Johnson Branch Library in St. Petersburg.

ORIGIN OF NAME: English. Gen. William Whipple of New Hampshire signed the Declaration of Independence. "I have no idea if we are related," he said.

CURRENT READING: Thomas McGuane's The Cadence of Grass, an investigation of how people think. Set in Montana, the story begins with a funeral.

NON-ART PASTIMES: Jogs along Bayshore Boulevard, works out, plays racquetball, has dinner parties where friends make huge cardboard sculptures - effigies - and set them on fire. Outside, of course.

WEB SITE: http://www.jeffwhipple.com