Four female painters
'Four Female Painters' exhibition at QSS, Belfast, showcases emerging female artists in Belfast and London. Their various styles and interpretations of figurative and portraiture works combine to promote dialogue around the historical and contemporary portrayal of the female form. The exhibition highlights this shared motivation and coincides with International Woman's Day.
“I am Generation Equality: Realising Women’s Rights” (08.03.2020)
Review by Slavka Sverakova
‘Is it clipped from some journal, photographs etc.? The translucent paint with pink disembody spatial logic/illusion, being both behind and in front. The emerald green appears thinner, like smoke, and seems to govern the osmotic exchange, a rapport between sharp optical definition and nebulous shapes.
Shifting styles feel like a defence against dogma. Not seeing it in original forges intimidating difficulty to ascertain what is what, what is every day, and what opposes the verisimilitude. The composition has the power to intrigue me and challenge my perceptions that oscillate between seeing and seeing as. I mean the ubiquitous duality of art objects, paintings in particular, as the call on similarity with every day while simultaneously denying it.
Both observed and made up are involved in -what some researchers refer to as parallax - one thing seen as two - art and life. From the history of painting point of view, Barton's images replace the great narrative associated with a Renaissance portrait or El Greco fusion of observed and imagined. With rhetoric favoured by Fluxus. Yet, all three resonate. One of the reasons is the osmotic exchange between optical definition and its absence, a rapport between retinal correctness and nebulous shapes. It carries epistemic risks while encouraging the viewer to join the play.”