Julian Whatley is a Los Angeles-based artist whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses painting, film, installation, and performance. Whatley’s work interrogates the malleability of inherited images and cultural mythologies, creating portals that reveal the underlying patterns of perception and memory.

A former Director of Photography with a background in the cinematic arts, Whatley brings a rigorously visual sensibility to his practice. His paintings—often rendered in oil on linen—oscillate between representation and abstraction, using synthetic color and fractured compositions to transform familiar iconography into evocative, layered architectures. His film and installation work similarly repurpose found imagery and sound, constructing immersive environments that draw viewers into moments of heightened awareness.

Rooted in the belief that art is a conduit for transcendent experience, Whatley’s work is not an act of self-expression but an invitation to encounter the unseen. His practice explores the “edge-conditions” of visual culture, drawing on the interplay of cinematic memory and myth to create what he describes as “psychotropic portals”—forms that open fleeting windows onto the meaning of existence.

Whatley’s approach is guided by a deep conviction that true art can collapse distance, connecting us to something greater. His work proposes that the most potent images are not central spectacles but peripheral phenomena—an edge condition where clarity, astonishment, and interconnection can emerge.