Five hundred years after the Renaissance, the same speechless intuitions haunt us. Painting is more than its means. It isn't just a technology. The best you can say is that the ideas embrace this or that and the means evoke this or that. After a period of international second billing, painting is once again capturing the imagination of artists who are keen to appreciate and express what it is that makes an idea artistic.
Painting is an ideal medium for that investigation.
And curators are right behind them. Two curators, Natalie King and Bala Starr, have come up with a useful way of looking at painting. The exhibition contains work of mixed quality and the theme would have been strengthened by more artists who paint better. Nevertheless, the selection reveals enough enthusiasm for painting among artists who might be involved in other media if the mood took them. The exhibition demonstrates that the contemporary interest in painting relates to the mysterious or arcane aspect of the processes.