Four summers ago, I met Avery Wheless on a dance floor. It was the Fourth of July, and I didn’t know anyone at the party. She was dancing. I wanted to be her friend.

Three summers ago, when Wheless ran out of wall space in her studio, I babysat her paintings. Amorphous greens and grays swam in my living room, and the girls laid above my bed. Lounging. I watched them watch me watch them.

Wheless’ paintings have a way of distilling the gelatinous space that exists just beyond what the eye sees. I’ve often felt her paintings, particularly the people, are like memories. They’re entirely specific while leaving room for constant readjustments. As in, who do you see today? And today? And, today?

In her new series Collective Intimacies, Wheless sets out to push this notion of seeing and being seen even further. I visited Wheless in her Los Angeles studio as she prepares for her first solo exhibition with Ochi Projects.

Wheless moves through her space like ocean waves—completely at home, at once calm and fraught. As I look around, a mesmerizing compilation of bodies, faces, places (both theatrical and intimate in nature) beg the question: Should we even be looking, and whom is it that we’re really looking at? Or, for?

Now more than ever, the act of seeing and being seen has shifted in nature. As the internet continues to morph, humans have modified the ways in which we interpret and come to understand both ourselves and others.

Take Wheless’ piece “Uninvited,” a big breath of red inspired by a photo from a private party. Two women sit in a room, dressed to impress. They look like they’re having fun. Beyond that, they know they’re being watched. Observed. By Wheless, first. Next, a camera. Dig deeper, their fellow party-goers. Last layer, themselves. This documentation of surveilled fun is where Wheless thrives. Her images are beautiful, always. But there’s something beyond the beauty. Wheless’ unique ability to express the feeling of being watched through her subjects is what keeps one staring, wanting more.

In the intimate imagery of “found you,” a woman sits on the edge of a pool, clad only in bikini bottoms. Her knees are folded up, childlike in their positioning. The woman’s erect posture and unplaceable gaze subvert the “sitting duck” expectation. Yes, this is a nearly naked woman. Of course this makes her vulnerable. She knows this. But, she also knows how good the sun feels on bare skin. How in this moment she feels free. Women are only too used to being watched. Keep looking, she dares you.

Wheless asks the question: Do you like what you see?

In her work this question unpacks itself like a Russian doll. Do you like what you see as a viewer? As the subject? As someone in the room? As someone in space? In this space, or that?

Photographing Wheless in her studio, I observe how she herself is concurrently painter and subject. One moment she blends in with the women, her arms two brushstrokes. They’re all in on a secret. Then Wheless climbs atop a small podium. Erect and angular, she becomes the obvious watcher. She becomes aware of this stiffness, melts down. Again, she joins the ladies.

As you look at her paintings, the paintings look at you. One understands the simultaneous act of seeing and being seen. The act of seeing oneself as subject and object. Both in the physical space her paintings exist as well as the imagined world beyond the canvases.

The ability to grow and the capacity to break are of great interest to Wheless. The point isn’t to capture a moment. The point is to capture a feeling. Collective Intimacies are impressions, not replications. The stage is constantly being reset, the players aware of themselves, aware of the stage, aware of Wheless. And as she paints, Wheless too is aware of herself. Aware of the players, aware of the stage.

Catch Collective Intimacies on view at Ochi Projects in Sun Valley, Idaho from April 2 through May 14, 2022.

Photographed by Bella Gadsby