Enhancing the Subject, a group show from the Apollo Painting School
19th September - 24th October
Enhancing the Subject Exhibition Catalogue
When Jack Whitten wrote, ‘I want to use the formal as a means to arrive at subject’, his work did not contain recognisable imagery, and yet it was brimming with tangible concepts. Whitten reiterated the importance of looking beyond simple pictorial interpretation. This exhibition brings together 15 artists who engage with the significance of this statement. There are pictures with and without recognisable objects, but through their experimentation with colour, composition, scale, physical structure and surface, these artists are truly bound together. These concerns become tools to enhance, expand or contradict initial readings and drive painting beyond ‘mere’ subject where paintedness itself has equal importance. United further by their unique experience of Apollo Painting School, they have come together at this time, in this place, to celebrate a moment. What is presented here is not the end, merely a pause on the lifelong journey of learning about paint, which as Philip Guston said, ‘you have not chosen, but are on nevertheless’.
Apollo Painting School is a non-profit organisation founded in 2023 by artist Louise Giovanelli, gallerist & curator Alice Amati and artist & academic Dr. Ian Hartshorne with the aim to create an alternative and unique learning opportunity for emerging painters which holds at its core a wish to be accessible to anyone, regardless of economic background or circumstances.
Exhibiting Artist
Cohort – Year 1
Hannah-Sophia Guerriero
Ally Fallon
Isaac Jordan
Deborah Lerner
Isobel Shore
Cohort – Year 2
Nora Hreb
Jamie Kirk
Catherine Ko Chen
Mahrokh Mofidnakhaei
Cohort – Year 3
Lauren Conway
Oscar Grasby
Grace McNerney
Francis Voss
Harry Miller
Tom White