Keeping Time

Forty-two paintings, which investigate the possibility of articulating personal history as collective memory through the act of painting. Painting is both a verb and a noun (an activity and an object) and its reception is contingent on the performative and durational process of making in the extent to which the paintings transcend their materiality to transport the viewer from the present towards a space of self-reflection through the qualities inherent in the works. In the accompanying text I pose the question of whether Kant’s notion of Beauty is still relevant to contemporary art practice, primarily through engagement with Merleau-Ponty’s extension of phenomenology such that the act of painting contributes to our unfolding knowledge of the world through the virtuosity of its realisation: in this way Truth and Beauty appear through the presencing (bringing to being) of the painting. The test of whether this happens successfully is through the response of the viewer experiencing the exhibition, noted in the gallery Comment’s book, and through critical reviews in publications.

The research material included a catalogue essay and narrated video that further disseminated the output.