In a world of constant notifications, social media connection, doomscrolling, and pervasive AI intervention—that is to say, the practical and relational networks that are producing in us a sense of overarching estrangement from the tangible and present—it is remarkable that painting, in its stubborn rootedness in material and process, persists (or perhaps insists?) with such importance and global presence. While periodically dismissed in art criticism as irrelevant, the vitality, urgency, and resonance of contemporary painting endures.
Painting asks for material engagement, slow looking, and a willingness to dwell in ambiguity. It is tactile, intimate, composed of gestures—quick and slow, instinctive and considered. In contrast to the speed and saturation of our hyper-digitized and hyper-connected lives, and in spite of a voracious hunger for novelty, immediacy, and spectacle, painting offers a counterpoint: a space for nuance that our culture rarely grants.
This winter, we’re excited to present solo exhibitions by several painters who each locate fleeting instances of connection, tenderness, or desire amidst the everyday, and give visual form to the ambiguity of intimate relationships. Reveling in uncertainty and complexity, these painters offer a resistance against clear narratives and over-definition, often creating works that hover in the space between figuration and abstraction. Each artist explores what is seen, what resists being seen, what is present—but that which we often overlook. These exhibitions ask us to linger, perhaps caught by a detail: the drag of a brush, the unexpected texture of material, the meeting of two colours, or the shift of a surface in changing light.
Artists:
Anthony Cudahy
Justin de Verteuil
Magalie Guérin
Alexandre Pépin