Painting on top of itself 2015-2020: five exhibitions discussing contemporary painting curated by Tarn McLean

Painting on top of itself 2015-2020: five exhibitions discussing contemporary painting curated by Tarn McLean

This was a series of five exhibitions discussing movements in contemporary painting involving thirteen national and international artists. The five exhibitions were separated into themes of Painting as Palimpsest, The Agreeable Surface, The Painting Word, Painting in a Visually Saturated Culture and Paintings Renewal. Collectively the exhibitions and participating artists and published book, debate and explore the evolution and development of Contemporary, Reductive and Non-Objective Painting in the second decade of the 21st Century. The book and artists involved have continued to work outside the parameters of popular art movements, consistently investigating conceptual intentions associated with the autonomous qualities of painting such as geometry, surface, pigment, line and form. The DIY nature of their working outcomes encourages a constructive aesthetic as well as an inclusive nature towards an ongoing historical dialogue. The artists included in the shows make works that sit both within and beyond the traditional picture frame and this considered extension is pursued in the nature of their continued dialogue with each other: regardless of nationality or culture there is a conceptual and academic salute to the Reductive and Non Objective practitioner, within both the individual and the genre as a working whole.

Contributing essay: Dr Kyle Jenkins.
Contributing artists: Olivier Mosset, Peter Holm, Kyle Jenkins, Gilbert Hsiao, John Aslanidis, Brad Buckley, Rose Nolan, Lars Breuer, Michael Zahn, David Thomas, Tarn McLean, Jan Van der Ploeg and Thorgej Steen-Hansen.

A five-part series of exhibitions, Paintingontopofitself is an insightful survey of painting, in particular non-objective painting. Throughout history, human beings have visually communicated their time, space and place through the medium and Dr Tarn McLean charts its evolution, leaving room for the reader to consider paintings way forward in a visually saturated culture, dominated by images.
An easy to read and discerning perspective with stunning art pictures, this book is an informative and authentic account of the practice of painting, whilst simultaneously revealing an intimate take on the conceptual intent of the artists included in the shows.
Contributing essay: Dr Kyle Jenkins.
Contributing artists: Olivier Mosset, Peter Holm, Kyle Jenkins, Gilbert Hsiao, John Aslanidis, Brad Buckley, Rose Nolan, Lars Breuer, Michael Zahn, David Thomas, Tarn McLean, Jan Van der Ploeg and Thorgej Steen-Hansen.