Purity is a Myth

Grounded in a rejection of painting as a vehicle for an authentic expression of self, or a purist renunciation of the phenomenal world Purity is a Myth expands beyond the existing dichotomy between figuration and abstraction presenting new possibilities which resist one single reading. The exhibition will open with a performance by Baker Overstreet, his first in a gallery context.

Keltie Ferris (b. 1977, Louisville, KY) creates intense constructions of colour, abstract motifs and multidirectional compositions. Direct and frank, her near brushless medium applications result in powerful and unforeseen 'fields of force.'

Rannva Kunoy (b.1975, Faroe Islands) creates vaporous paintings caught up in a perpetual process of becoming. Drawn from motifs borrowed from sources ranging from High Modernist painting to anonymous sci-fi illustration, Kunoy's paintings present visions of a world which remains unknown.

Elizabeth Neel (b.1975, Stowe, Vermont) creates sensually painted, intuitive introspections. Drawn from specific, real world subject matter: from anonymous images sourced from the Internet, Neel's 'fictive situations' exist as excavations of life, and the contamination of nature, and death and decay.

Baker Overstreet (b.1981 Augusta, Georgia) creates crudely rendered, vibrant, faux-naïve, folkish paintings characterised by a painterly lexicon of personal symbolism and gesture. The focus of Overstreet's new works on view is a floating head, that of Overstreet's invented character June, a trunk performer. These works serve as backdrops, or advertisements for June who makes her gallery debut at the opening of the exhibition.

Mary Ramsden (b. 1984 Harrogate, England) creates intimately-scaled abstract compositions in which amoebic forms fuse with bold, gestural mark-making. Delicate in scale, yet raw and ambitious in execution, Ramsden's works are testament to a commitment to painting as a progressive language that demands our attentive engagement.