IN THE CITY Exhibition

Trevor Burgess | Mark Crofton Bell | Stephen Carter | Aida Rubio Gonzalez | Marguerite Horner | Matthew Krishanu | Lee Maelzer | Jock McFadyen | Tanmoy Samanta

IN THE CITY is an exhibition of contemporary painters whose work explores the experience of living in a city.

More than half the world’s population now lives in cities. Conceived in London, the exhibition includes works reflecting on cities in the United States and Canada, Latin America and the Indian subcontinent.

The exhibition asserts the continuing resourcefulness of painting as a medium that is capable of complex representations of the contemporary world. It includes images that transcend specifics of place: images of urban spaces recuperated or assembled from memories, photography, the media and the mind of the artist.

IN THE CITY is curated by Trevor Burgess, whose work has for many years been rooted in his everyday experience of living in London. In selecting artists for this show, he sought out painters
for whom lived experience of social existence in a city was a primary element contributing to their picture-making.

Paintings in the exhibition range from Marguerite Horner’s glimpsed views of suburban streets in the United States to Matthew Krishanu’s paintings of the city rooftops of Bangladesh; from Aida Rubio Gonzales’ image of a liquor store in a Latin American city to Lee Maelzer’s paintings of urban detritus in London. Jock McFadyen contributes work from a new series of paintings of Car Parks. Tanmoy Samanta’s paintings distil poetic essences from mundane experience of his life in the city of New Delhi. Newspapers and the media provide source material for Trevor Burgess, Mark Crofton Bell and Stephen Carter each to explore different aspects of their everyday visual experience of urban life.

An exhibition catalogue will be available, with an introductory essay by Robert Harbison, lecturer in architecture and author of “Eccentric Spaces”, whose hybrid writings reflect his wide-ranging interests in place, artefacts, history and the imagination.