Bio

Whitney grew up in small-town Arkansas, where she graduated from University of Central Arkansas with a Bachelors of Science in Education in 2008. After teaching elementary school for six years, she moved to Austin in 2014 and used the transition as an opportunity to immerse herself in creating art— beginning with her first series of work, "The Matriarchs" inspired and influenced by modern women. She is a contemporary mixed-media artist working with vintage portraiture photography to explore phases and facets of feminine identity. Whitney has solo-exhibited at Elisabet Ney Museum— a collection titled, “Feminine Grandeur.” Whitney's work has been featured in Saatchi Art's 100 Voices, 100 Artists, a Society 6 blog-- Saints & Sinners: The Women of Whitney Avra, Tribeza Magazine, The Austin Chronicle, Austin CultureMap, and Spark Magazine. She is also represented by Commerce Gallery in Lockhart, Texas and Maestri Gallery in Dallas, Texas. In 2021, she moved home to west Arkansas where she lives with her daughter, fiance, and their three dogs.

ABOUT THE WORK

Creating mixed media works, I am able to play with bold, unexpected color palettes, unique patterns, and rich textures. Each piece is a process of layering, listening, and learning about the ways women give and receive, love and hold space, bond in sisterhood, and shed societal constraints to step into their wild power. Making art allows me to create for the sake of creating, an opportunity to spend time with myself, an excuse to play. I read an article a while back with a line that sticks out in my mind: “I create unruly beauty for its own sake.”