First of all this show is a bit of a reaction to the sameyness of a lot of painting. It’s almost like the whole thing turned into zombie formalism. Figurative formalism. Add the number of older white men going around talking about “real” painting which they are finally “allowed” to do, and you have a boring conservative atmosphere that I am at risk of being dragged into with my own paintings. So let’s clear the decks. “You want a painting show, well then paint-it-yourself.” It doesn’t matter what it looks like anyway. Probably with my own history of readymade painting right back to the ones that remained unpainted at “The Opening” I can get away with this kind of shit and still call it a painting show. I’d anyway been musing about doing massively zoned out abstract paintings which led to the vague thought that this would mean showing only blank canvases and paint.
Merlin Carpenter
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