Optimism: The Art of Our Time
JAMES BALMFORTH, TOM BARNETT, ANDREAS BLANK, THOMAS BROCK, BOBBY DOWLER, CHRISTOPHER GREEN, OLIVER GRIFFIN, MARCUS KLEINFELD, SHAUN MCDOWELL, MICHAEL ALLEN & DANIEL SCHWITZER, ROBIN SHEPHERD, MATTHEW STONE, HENRY STRINGER, VIKTOR TIMOFEEV, AWST & WALTHER AND EDWARD WALLACE
OPTIMISM: THE ART OF OUR TIME is an exhibition celebrating optimism with all its positive and negative implications, historical burden and importance for the future.
It explores the role of optimism in both our engagement with art and the circumstances of its creation; its importance as a personal philosophy, and its wider value for the world we live in.
OPTIMISM: THE ART OF OUR TIME combines the essential and enduring with the startlingly new. The works evaluate the present and acknowledge the past, but most importantly look to the future as the exhibition embraces the idea that interaction, communication and therefore art are possible. This Optimism is dynamic as much as it is solemn.
The show sees a group of artists utilising the catalytic potential and communicative possibilities of optimism and expressing it in painting, sculpture, printing, drawing, photography and video. The theoretical stance is matched with solid craftsmanship and the use of elemental materials: gold, glass, stone, metal, concrete and wood.
