54 (What Now?)

About

My illustrious lordship, I’ll show you what a woman can do.

This quote from 17th century Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi can be taken as a call to arms, a beacon in an extremely male dominated world to empower other women to put brush to canvas, to create, to become visible. Developments in women’s rights, the growth of feminist movements and changes to the way we see the role of women in our societies have come to pass since then, and in 21st century contemporary art the imbalance, the extent of which remains a discussion point, is noticeably redressed.

The 2024 edition of our group show What Now? recognises this evolution in showing work made by female and female identifying artists, examining and sharing their experiences and voices, and how these translate into art through their processes. The show aims to contribute to the gradual progression, increasing female visibility and notoriety in the global art world, further bolstering PM/AM’s support for female artists that is apparent across its exhibition programme, residency and representation. Encompassing various artforms, What Now? retains a primary focus on painting, centralising the medium’s historic prevalence and anchored position around which other mediums revolve, and features artists that transcend formats.

Jo Dennis’ work is a case in point, sitting between painting and sculpture and relying on reclaimed materials as a key part of the artistic process. Coming straight from Dallas Art Fair where she had a solo booth with us, her work connects to the emotional and psychological associations we have with home. Her almost entirely abstract works are striking, texturally rich expressions of loss and dereliction, but also the ways we can reframe and redirect our more challenging experiences into positives.

Gina Kuschke’s painting process occupies a procedural approach to the physical medium, woven into the temporal drift of sound. Tracing an almost synaesthetic path between the two, her abstract paintings revolve around the mysteries of identity and expression, bridging the personal with the universal. Treating the canvases as surfaces on which to record the events that produce a visual artefact, they become archives of performance, improvisation and presence.

Shyama Golden’s background in graphic design and illustration informs paintings that are meticulously constructed, their intricate forms matched by richly balanced colour palettes. She infuses folkloric imagery with contemporary settings, traversing history and reality and bringing visitors into a space charged with dreams, and sometimes enhanced with sound. This is however only one aspect of the work. Through this more surreal lens she is able to open dialogues on how we in our societies interact with each other, performing within the frameworks of everyday life.