Exhibition review: Paintguide @ Unit London
- Jan 1, 2016
- 2 min read
Whilst in London, I visited one of my favourite independent galleries: Unit, and was lucky enough to catch Paintguide on the last day of its exhibition run.
The small show displayed the work of 60 contemporary artists from all over the world, with one slight catch...all these works were discovered, with varying degrees of fame, on Instagram. It is the first exhibition to use social media as its platform, the exhibition guide itself states that it is "[indicative] of the art world's shift in focus towards social and digital platforms."
It was great to see so many paintings that I have only ever seen on my phone screen previously in reality, and to finally get the full experience from them. Ryan Hewett's Heizer, for example surprised me in the way the oils were applied to the canvas, the messy brush strokes and very thick impasto giving it depth and feeling.
A couple of my favourite pieces were Kit King's Artist Block, due to its incredible hyper-realism that strongly gives the impression of the hand with its middle finger raised breaking through the canvas and towards the viewer, and Gale by Henrik Uldalen, an artist who's unique, dreamlike style of painting has long since been a personal inspiration.
This show directly links to my own exploration in my studio practice: the way social media is taking over and is gaining control of many aspects of our lives, and now apparently the art world too. One of the exhibiting artists, Jeremy Geddes - his piece Fury 4 one of the highest priced works at £6000 - stated that "the internet and more recently social media has had a profound impact on artists. It has broken open the traditional models of establishing careers and allowed artists of similar mindsets to find each other and work in solidarity. This Instagram show aptly illustrates this emerging model: Paintguide has brought together artists with differing styles and aesthetic sensibilities, all of whom however, share a passion for the visual arts."
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