The Reason for Painting
4 May – 25 Jun 2023
Mead Gallery, Coventry

The Art Riot Collective, Betsy Bradley, James Collins, Pam Evelyn, Jadé Fadojutimi, Rachel Jones, Harminder Judge, Melike Kara, Rob Lyon, Oscar Murillo, Ruairiadh O’Connell, Francis Offman, Mary Ramsden and Sam Windett.

The Reason for Painting continues the Mead Gallery’s longstanding examination of abstract painting. It builds on previous Mead exhibitions including: Slow Burn (1998), Slipping Abstraction (2007), The Indiscipline of Painting (2012) and Kaleidoscope (2017). The exhibition also profiles a diverse group of younger artists that came together through their experience of using colour and paint, to experiment and consider the world in which we live today.

The exhibition took inspiration from The University of Warwick’s founding art collection, which was shaped by two informed collectors of art. The University’s architect, Eugene Rosenberg and the building contractor, Alistair McAlpine, who took interest in young artists who were developing international critical acclaim in the field of abstraction, including Jack Bush, Gene Davis and Patrick Heron.

Returning to The Reason for Painting Exhibition itself, the featured artists make work that is rooted in the everyday, including ineffable feelings and emotions, daily conversations and transactions, crossing borders, our local environments, spiritualism, cultural heritage, and routine—making the case that abstract painting and lived experience are inherently intertwined.

The Reason for Painting
4 May – 25 Jun 2023
Mead Gallery, Coventry

The Art Riot Collective, Betsy Bradley, James Collins, Pam Evelyn, Jadé Fadojutimi, Rachel Jones, Harminder Judge, Melike Kara, Rob Lyon, Oscar Murillo, Ruairiadh O’Connell, Francis Offman, Mary Ramsden and Sam Windett.

The Reason for Painting continues the Mead Gallery’s longstanding examination of abstract painting. It builds on previous Mead exhibitions including: Slow Burn (1998), Slipping Abstraction (2007), The Indiscipline of Painting (2012) and Kaleidoscope (2017). The exhibition also profiles a diverse group of younger artists that came together through their experience of using colour and paint, to experiment and consider the world in which we live today.

The exhibition took inspiration from The University of Warwick’s founding art collection, which was shaped by two informed collectors of art. The University’s architect, Eugene Rosenberg and the building contractor, Alistair McAlpine, who took interest in young artists who were developing international critical acclaim in the field of abstraction, including Jack Bush, Gene Davis and Patrick Heron.

Returning to The Reason for Painting Exhibition itself, the featured artists make work that is rooted in the everyday, including ineffable feelings and emotions, daily conversations and transactions, crossing borders, our local environments, spiritualism, cultural heritage, and routine—making the case that abstract painting and lived experience are inherently intertwined.