About
This exhibition, curated specifically for CMR Art Gallery & Project Space in Redruth, Cornwall, showcases the work of artists who use paint to present realities and perceptions in new and developed ways.
In the 21st century, what is the role of the artist who uses paint and pigment? What is the continuing significance of painting in an apparently restless and uncertain world?
This exhibition, featuring 13 artists from Cornwall, North Devon and Austria, offers possible answers to these questions. These working methods and artworks do not conform to some traditional expectations of painting found in Cornwall, which are often rooted in the histories of Newlyn, the modernism of St. Ives, and illusory romanticism.
Modernism cast its utopian wisdom worldwide, but has become the haunting ghost of regularity and formula. In the wake of conceptual art and the postmodernist death and rebirth of painting, terms such as 'abstract', 'figurative' and 'landscape' have become irrelevant categories. These works draw from the multiple visual languages of painterly possibility and show the diversity and engagement that artists have with modern life. They acknowledge the histories of art and the influences of media, and invoke a subtle subversion.
The use of pigment is a millennia old method of communication and play. These artists use the essential qualities of drawing and mark-making with materials to ascertain that there is more to be drawn out and unleashed through the hand than has already been shown. Using observation, interpretation, symbolism or sense the artists show painting as a mode of questioning and analysis, healing, hope and humour.
The potential algorithms of image and form found within restless complex states are revealed and defined, by the makers, in objects and surfaces. These works explore alternative visions and deeply-grounded realities. They illustrate the ways we connect to place, consciousness, ourselves or each other.
Participating Artists:
Sam Bassett (Cornwall)
Ros Bason (Cornwall)
Ilker Cinarel (Cornwall)
Emma Griffin (Cornwall)
Charmaine Honeychurch (Cornwall)
Duncan Hopkins (Cornwall)
Janet McEwan (Cornwall)
Elisa McLeod (Cornwall)
Morwenna Morrison (Cornwall)
Jayne Anita Smith (Cornwall)
Anna Stangl (Guest Artist, Vienna, Austria)
Frances Walsh (Cornwall)
Peter Ward (North Devon)
lead curator: D.Hopkins
