‘Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which lines, triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it…and you will have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen.’ ‘Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which lines, triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it…and you will have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen.’
Edwin A. Abbott – Flatland (1884)
Flatland is an exhibition of contemporary painting that takes its name from Edwin A. Abbott’s book about life in a two-dimensional world.
The six artists in the exhibition use both traditional and unconventional techniques and media in their approach to the discipline. Exploring various ways that the definition of painting is continuously evolving, the exhibition seeks to expand the traditional parameters of painting: blurred, deconstructed, and refigured.
These artists treat abstraction as one language among many, neither privileged nor reactionary. Some of their common themes are clear: history and the passing of time, the representation or metaphor of the body, the depiction and negotiation of spatial elements, worlds within worlds: while others more elusive. Working with an optimism and freedom within the medium the artists in this show amply demonstrate that painting is an unfinished project, a work in progress, as mysterious and vital as ever.

Stephen Buckley

Tim Ellis

Jane Harris

Richard Kirwan