ZOMBIE PAINTING
22 MARCH - 8 APRIL 2018
Opening Wednesday 21 MARCH | 6 - 8 pm
Kate Fraser, actor, will introduce the exhibition in a performance channeling the spirit of contemporary art
The limits of painting are already stretched far beyond death – its death. Like a bloated corpse, the very foundation of the painted surface has burst open and fragmented, only to fall apart again—the pieces left to rot in the post-human wastelands of what used to be called art theory.
Dressed in the robes of scroungers, The Zombies of Painting have scoured the dusty piles of discarded words and failed practices to scavenge more body parts. After partially filling their hessian sacks, The Zombies returned to their damp and darkened caves as rheumy eyed Pygmalions still yearning for Galatea, where they construct the object of their venal heart’s desire.
Using these dead parts, not all of which match or are indeed sourced from painting itself, The Zombies reassembled provisionally new incarnations that once again resemble life. Then, using assorted pseudo-scientific methodologies; they re-animated their crafty work. Like Mary Shelley’s disturbed scientist Dr Victor Frankenstein before them, The Zombies of Painting have transgressed the founding principles of civilised morality to pursue their ends. The resulting “creatures” will be dangerous, unpredictable, and definitely not for sale. Instead, such a monstrous form must be experienced then mercilessly driven out into the polar wilderness of art criticism.
Painting has expanded to include both that which is outside its medium and beyond its prescriptive internal concerns. The result is art that fails to form any coherent medial unity, evidence of genius, or object of fetish. Consequently, this work is instantly recognisable as the work of regular art citizenry rather than as that of alienated bohemian artists. Today, these citizens protect the city of art in a manner reminiscent of the good Burghers in Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s 1642 painting The Nightwatch, a dismembered painting. These art citizens are The Zombies of Painting. They are now the ones standing before the void of outsideness to maintain the traditions of the city of art. Theirs are the traditions of transgression, resistance and denial founded in the classical horizons of 20th century avant-gardes.
The Zombies of Painting are Mark Titmarsh, Sean Lowry, Mark Shorter, Andre Brodyk and Tom Loveday. These artists routinely and omnivorously stretch the limits of painting to accommodate everything from video to performance to bio-tech and even the conspicuous absence of painting itself in order to critique the socially constructed worlds of the living. These Zombies of Painting seek to re-establish painting as a theoretical foundation for artistic practice generally. They want to somehow carry on living outside of the twilight zones of contemporary art’s cruel relativist quagmire.
Yet, it lives.
Dressed in the robes of scroungers, The Zombies of Painting have scoured the dusty piles of discarded words and failed practices to scavenge more body parts. After partially filling their hessian sacks, The Zombies returned to their damp and darkened caves as rheumy eyed Pygmalions still yearning for Galatea, where they construct the object of their venal heart’s desire.
Using these dead parts, not all of which match or are indeed sourced from painting itself, The Zombies reassembled provisionally new incarnations that once again resemble life. Then, using assorted pseudo-scientific methodologies; they re-animated their crafty work. Like Mary Shelley’s disturbed scientist Dr Victor Frankenstein before them, The Zombies of Painting have transgressed the founding principles of civilised morality to pursue their ends. The resulting “creatures” will be dangerous, unpredictable, and definitely not for sale. Instead, such a monstrous form must be experienced then mercilessly driven out into the polar wilderness of art criticism.
Painting has expanded to include both that which is outside its medium and beyond its prescriptive internal concerns. The result is art that fails to form any coherent medial unity, evidence of genius, or object of fetish. Consequently, this work is instantly recognisable as the work of regular art citizenry rather than as that of alienated bohemian artists. Today, these citizens protect the city of art in a manner reminiscent of the good Burghers in Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s 1642 painting The Nightwatch, a dismembered painting. These art citizens are The Zombies of Painting. They are now the ones standing before the void of outsideness to maintain the traditions of the city of art. Theirs are the traditions of transgression, resistance and denial founded in the classical horizons of 20th century avant-gardes.
The Zombies of Painting are Mark Titmarsh, Sean Lowry, Mark Shorter, Andre Brodyk and Tom Loveday. These artists routinely and omnivorously stretch the limits of painting to accommodate everything from video to performance to bio-tech and even the conspicuous absence of painting itself in order to critique the socially constructed worlds of the living. These Zombies of Painting seek to re-establish painting as a theoretical foundation for artistic practice generally. They want to somehow carry on living outside of the twilight zones of contemporary art’s cruel relativist quagmire.
Yet, it lives.