At Home with Painting

At Home with Painting, curated by Madeleine Kelly

Exhibition: Thursday 7 March – Saturday 20 April 2024

Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, Old Teachers’ College, The University of Sydney.

 

This exhibition explored the myriad ways of being at home with painting. Are we at home with the act of ‘painting’ (the verb), in the company of ‘Painting’ (the noun) or even constructing a kind of psychological ‘home’ through painting? Why are home and painting so emblematic of our struggles?

 

Painting, like home, occupies a unique position in our individual and collective psyches—as verb or noun—the promise of familiarity and comfort but perhaps too, lingering in its textures, the strange and uncanny, or even discomfort and threat. Painting can be good company too. To be at home with painting is to explore its crystalline dimensions and these artists do just that.

 

Artists: Hany Armanious, Amber Boardman, Angela Brennan, Diena Georgetti, Alex Gawronski, Newell Harry, Madeleine Kelly, Spencer Lai, Archie Moore, Jahnne Pasco-White, Lisa Radford, Tim Schultz, Jelena Telecki and Rex Veal.

 

Archie Moore Bannertree floor, 2021 Acrylic on nothing
At Home with Painting, curated by Madeleine Kelly
Lisa Radford Understudy series (above) Furniture Painting (below)
Angela Brennan Are our atoms ours, 2022 Oil on linen; Schrodinger’s Equation (some of it), 2022 Oil on linen; Amber Boardman Coffee Extremist, 2023 Oil on canvas

To be at home with painting has an inbuilt elasticity. These artists, while ‘at home’ with paintings, explore them as unfixed objects. They implore us to explore their ‘homely’ worlds while challenging us to decode contemporary painting.

Madeleine Kelly, March, 2024

Jelena Telecki Interior 2, 2021 Oil on linen
SCA page link

Sydney College of the Arts Gallery Page