Final Catalogue 2024 - Flipbook - Page 4
What is painting? A way of recording what we see? A visual means of self-expression? Making
something nice to put on your wall? Painting is so much more than these things. From the
dawn of humanity, painting has been the greatest of all means of apprehending the world. It has
transcribed our desires and fears, become a tool of state propaganda and private doubt, showed
us what we were, and wanted to be, and are not, as well as are.
But what is painting today? Photography long ago robbed painting of its primary role as
describer; the startling development of AI suggests that even the role of the creator will soon
become obsolete. There are now so many other media that are faster, easier, more accurate,
more spectacular… So why do we still paint?
You might as well ask yourself: Why dance? Why fall in love? My answer to all of these
questions is because we need to. These things not only enrich us but de昀椀ne us as living beings.
And like dancing and falling in love, the value of painting lies in its physicality. You cannot
paint unless you know what it is to be alive, to touch and to hold. The medium itself is as corporeal as the artists who use it. Painting is awkward, it takes forever to get something the way
you want it, you’re constantly battling with the substance itself, sometimes drying too fast and
at other times taking forever to form a skin and, in the meantime, turning everything around it
muddy. Paint itself is every bit as infuriating as the most tempestuous of relationships. Painting
can drive you mad as well as make you happy. In painting there are no ‘undo’ buttons and no
‘creative 昀椀lters’, painting is real, painting carries risks. Like no other art form, painting isn’t just
a set of media, it’s an analogy for existence itself.
I am proud to present to you this year’s University of Brighton BA (hons) Fine Art Painting
graduate show catalogue. In the following pages you will see the work of 28 artists, all of whom
have spent their time on the course exploring a multitude of different ways not only of making
art, but of being and becoming in a fast-changing world. Some of these artists have celebrated
the medium of painting, some have critiqued it, others have left paint behind entirely or, perhaps
more accurately, rede昀椀ned it as a practice beyond mere categorisations of media. In 昀椀nding their
voices, all have not only carved out a place for themselves as artists, but continue the endless
task of 昀椀nding out who they are as people, and where we might all stand in our hyperreal
landscape.
It is our privilege as viewers to see the world we think ourselves so familiar with, through 28
different pairs of eyes; through their work, to see what they have seen, perhaps gain an insight
into what they feel, and in our witnessing of their labours to reaf昀椀rm the real value of being
human.
May 2024
Christopher Stevens
Course Leader
BA (hons) Fine Art Painting
University of Brighton
2
