Elizabeth Whiteley

Whiteley created Welcoming Beauty 1 in 2018. It is composed of hand painted folders containing elaborately folded papers based on the two-dimensional principles of dynamic symmetry transposed to three-dimensions. As the reader unfolds the papers, Whiteley's original writings about beauty as a spiritual theme are revealed. She expanded the content of Welcoming Beauty 1 and created a digital, or electronic, artist's book. Titled Welcoming Beauty 2, it contains her paintings and writings, as well as drawings based on the sacred cut. The e-book was published in 2019.

From 2006 to 2011, she served on the editorial board of the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts (JMA) and was a peer reviewer. From 2010 to 2011 she served as an associate editor and co-editor for book and exhibition reviews. From 2006 to 2011, she served as an associate editor of Hyperseeing, the journal of the International Society of Art, Mathematics, and Architecture (ISAMA).

The Bridges Organization has included Whiteley's mathematical art in juried exhibitions at their international conferences. Her sculptures based on the dynamic symmetry of the square root of two were exhibited in 2006 and bas-relief sculptures with flexible planar surfaces were exhibited in 2012.

Whiteley has explored various printed and handmade processes for creating artist's books. She learned about artists' books as works of art utilizing the form of the book when she was a photography student of Keith A. Smith at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1989, she was the artist's book designer and co-illustrator for a shuffle book, Deck of Cards, by Peter H. Beaman. She oversaw the offset lithography production of the edition at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, founded by Helen C. Frederick. Johanna Drucker included an analysis of the book in her textbook on artists' books.

Along with Sheila Rotner and Zinnia, she was a founder and editor of EyeWash, a monthly tabloid of visual arts peer reviews for the Washington DC area. It was published from 1989 to 1993. In addition to editing, she contributed editorial page articles and reviews of exhibits. Issues and administrative records for EyeWash are available in the Archives of American Art.

Since 1988, she has used the geometric design elements of dynamic symmetry as presented by Jay Hambidge, for paintings, works on paper, and sculpture. She also uses the geometric construction of the sacred cut, named by a Danish engineer, Tons Brunes. She is also influenced by the research on the sacred cut done by Kim Williams and by Jay Kappraff. She applies the sacred cut line drawing as subject matter and a compositional structure for her ink drawings and metalpoint drawings.

She has shown her artworks in juried and invitational fine art exhibits from regional to international levels. In 1979, she won a museum purchase award from the Carnegie Museum of Art at the 70th Annual Exhibit of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. In 1985, she had a solo exhibition of paintings and hand colored monoprints at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts as a member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh.

Elizabeth Whiteley (born 1945) is an American fine artist and designer.

Whiteley was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, US, in 1945. Whiteley earned a B.A. degree from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and a M.S. in library science from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). She received a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).