White Painting is one of several paintings in the Hoarfrost Series created by Roy Kiyooka in Regina in 1959 and 1960. He began the series after meeting Barnett Newman at the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshop in 1959. The works were his first abstractions and are unique for their all-over patterning. He made them by juxtaposing strokes of white and off-white paint on a coloured ground. Kiyooka did not entirely abandon references to the external world and based these paintings on frost patterns. In 1959, Roy Kiyooka left Regina to take a position at the Vancouver School of Art and subsequently taught at the University of British Columbia. Roy Kiyooka had a diverse artistic career in various media including painting, collage, sculpture, film, photography and poetry. He spent a relatively short time as a painter, abandoning the medium completely in the 1960s. He has been a vital influence on subsequent generations of Vancouver artists.