Artist Statement

The top 3 reasons I make art:

1. Humans are animals and art is a divine parasite that enables communion with the nontangible.

2. I once had a bad dog and that bad dog had me.

3. If I don’t move my bones rot. It’s the same feeling when you go to take a bite of something rancid and your gullet vetos. Only slower. 

Bio

My name is Jack Henry Whetstone. I go by Jack Henry, double name no middle. I grew up in a creative family in North Carolina, Jeff is my dad, Stephanie is my mom, Cole is my brother and Annie was the dog. Same last name.

We had a miniature ceramic studio in the house growing up and I threw pottery until I was accepted into the Sam Fox School of fine Art and Design at Washington University in St. Louis in 2019. There, the conceptual dichotomies in clay including manmade vs organic, malleable vs rigid, and tool vs art drove my practice across mediums.

Today, I live and work in Brooklyn, New York and continue to probe for nuances in humanity in the context of evolution, anthropology and culture through means of sculpture.

CV

Jack Henry Whetstone Born 2001, New Haven CT

Education B.F.A Sculpture, Washington University in St. Louis, 2023

Assistant Roles Joseph Silovsky, 2021 Kahlil Robert Irving, 2024

Exhibitions 2023 Dove in a Bunker, Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis, MO

2022 What is WARGAP TARGAp, Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis, MO

2021 Three Raccoons in a Trench Coat, Monaco Gallery, St. Louis, MO

2018 International Space Station, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY