Caught by Surprise

Background: Through the production of paintings and their presentation as constituents in the form of exhibition, the research focuses on ideas of capriciousness and equivocality via the notion of an unstable present, arranging itself in conjunction with globalisation and capitalism. This was informed by research into contemporaneity, sourced via the work of philosophers Boris Groys (2016) and Peter Osborne (2018). The research sought to extend and contribute to culturally based discourses around an ever-changing contemporary, through examinations of painting and its displays, negotiating new ways of enacting renewal and creative potential through the expression of progressive change within artworks and exhibition. Contribution 'Caught by Surprise' examined the potentials of painting practice in relation to our erratic and perplexing times, the idiom of painting holding within it abundant possibilities for appraising diverse feelings. Informed by the research of German theorist Isabelle Graw (2016) the research asserted that painting is attuned to change, and, in support of this, examined the rectification in painting as continuously being revealed. Painting was presented as a change-medium, potentially unstable, and replete with diversions. Painting was investigated as corresponding to a capriciousness that marks the mood of our times. Crucially, the exhibition marked uncertainty and ambiguity as a pertinent space of interminable possibility, signalling a role for painting as a sensory and pre-purposeful indicator of these times. Significance HBK Braunschweig is one of the largest, most renowned art academies in Germany. This exhibition was selected by Prof. Thomas Rentmeister and Vice-President Dr Rainer Heuer, academic peers at HBK. The exhibition catalogue was written by Lesley Harding, Artistic Director at Heide Museum of Modern Art. Several thousand visitors attended the exhibition, with a daily attendance average of 50 to 80 visitors.