Painting from the Other Side
An exhibition of recent paintings by:
Kate Bickmore - Elise Broadway - Andrea Christodoulides - Shannon Forrester - Lydia Pettit – Leon Pozniakow - Jhonatan Pulido - Olivia Sterling - Osaretin Ugiagbe
Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art, 1 Hester Road, London, SW11 4AN
2-6 April 11AM-5PM
PV 6 April 6PM-9PM (artists will be in attendance)
7 April 11AM-3PM
RSVP @ http://bit.ly/PaintingFromTheOtherSide
Painting from the Other Side explores the concept of the reparative in painting by artists whose identities are in some way outside of the minority power position of the western canon of painting by straight white male artists (see some information about this issue related to gender on the NMWA website https://nmwa.org/advocate/get-facts specifically data on H.W. Janson’s survey, Basic History of Western Art and regarding black artists of both genders https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/arts/design/black-artists-and-the-march-into-the-museum.html, both from a U.S. context). The power of visual interventions to produce culture is well known, yet research focused on the affective power of painting within a specifically reparative framework remains greatly unconsidered. This exhibition showcases paintings engaged in aspects of reparative world building and interested in potential futures driven by hopeful optimisms for a more egalitarian world.
In Reparative Aesthetics Susan Best describes the reparative as something which “holds negative and positive together, seeks pleasure rather than avoidance of shame as a reparative, and has a capacity to assimilate violence.” The transformative potential of reparative aesthetics is far reaching and multifaceted, yet not the predominant method used to critically subvert identity-based marginalization and its companion representations. Painting from the Other Side seeks to pull the place where the reparative turn leads us more fully into the conscious present.
It is clear that systemic cultural agents work to deploy inequity to obstruct human flourishing, these paintings explore how these systems of subjection and exclusion could be subverted in the visual realm through painting. This exhibition explores what the subversive and/or liberatory potential of the reparative turn in painting is to combat the nefarious effects that misogyny, homophobia, and racism have on human flourishing. Painting from the Other Side will place painting practice at the heart of inquiry, imagining how colour, aesthetics, form, paint, narrative, and material can be mobilised in service of these subversive aims.
Painting from the Other Side is curated by Shannon Forrester as part of a practice-led postgraduate PhD research project.
Possible prompts into the reparative: exploration of optimistic futures, expression of wounded narratives, proposals of transfer and/or realisation of power, dismantling of socio-political marginalisation, refutation of stereotype, empowerment, healing, joy, revenge, beauty, colour, leader, acceptance, thriving, wildness.
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