Group Exhibition: 'Destroyed by Shadows', Cornerstone Gallery, Liverpool Hope University, 2018

This group exhibition curated by John Bunker and myself aimed at an overview of contemporary British painting. The criteria for selection included a critical dialogue with abstract paintings past histories, a semiotic understanding of the language of abstraction as as a frame for visual making, a relationship with the ubiquitous flat digital screen and, by employing and utilising different paint mediums, an examination of the potentiality of both practical techniques with autographic expression. Starting with Robert Rauschenberg's famous quote that: "After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing in these paintings that could not be changed, that they can be seen in any light and are not destroyed by the action of shadows", the artists in this show invert this claim to ask questions of the received wisdom's of the idioms of abstract painting and theories about the destroyed narratives of modernism and post-modernism. By inviting the shadows cast by the social histories of art, politics, non-art materials, digital representations and the bodies performative actions into the realm of abstraction, this show questions the notion that an artwork can simply be a blank receptor for the ever changing vagaries of the day to day or a viewer’s own subjectivity. It also challenges the idea that painting's meanings reside purely in the artist's assertion of control and intentions. They explore anxieties about contemporary culture and the shadows of history (and futures) that constantly move over the contemporary picture plane. My particular piece contained an additional roll of Cat 5 digital cable placed on the very top of the painting and to the right. This addition is intended to act as a readymade, signifying it's social function in relation to the painting but also as a drawn, sculptural element. Artists: Dominic Beatty, John Bunker, Neil Gall, Peter Lamb, Andrea Medjesi-Jones, Harland Miller, Selma Parlour, DJ Simpson, Michael Stubbs, Shaan Syed, Clare Woods, Vicky Wrigh