Author(s): Barry Pearce

Art

Passionate, charismatic, wild, gifted, troubled, prolific, Whiteley was a unique and extraordinary artistic spirit, and his studio concentrates everything that made him so in one place. A converted T-shirt factory, it houses his exhibition gallery and, upstairs, his living quarters and the studio itself, with brushes and paint splattered floor; an unfinished painting leaning against the wall. It is as if he has just stepped out.