Painting from the Other Side: Tracing the Reparative Turn in Contemporary Practice

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18432/ari29486

Keywords:

contemporary painting, feminism, reparative, social justice, curation, hopeful futurity, human flourishing

Abstract

Painting from the Other Side, is the curatorial project section of a larger interdisciplinary practice-led research project titled Embodying the Reparative Turn: Seeking Agency through Studio Practice in Individual and Collective Contexts that investigates the potential of the reparative turn in painting, aesthetics, narrative, and curation to subvert, evade, and exit from dynamics of exclusion linked to homophobia, misogyny, and racism. It considers how systemic cultural agents propagating exclusion deploy inequity to obstruct human flourishing, then explores how they are subverted through diverse reparative practices in painting. Painting from the Other Side included an open call for paintings that engage with reparative content by artists whose identities are in some way outside of the minority power position of the Western canon of painting by straight white male artists. It included intensive studio visits and culminated in an exhibition. This paper proposes a theoretical framework of reparative painting and practice, tracing the many paths research-participant artists followed towards a reparative turn in painting.

Author Biography

Shannon Forrester, Royal College of Art

Shannon Forrester is an international artist working in the expanded field of painting and interdisciplinary practice-led research. Forrester is a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art, School of Arts and Humanities in the Fine Art Research Program currently working on developing reparative-turn theory in painting and practice. Forrester has a BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MFA Painting and Graduate Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGS) from Boston University. Their interdisciplinary work incorporates painting, curation, and writing at the intersection of WGS, new materialism, colour philosophy, and cultural studies. Forrester also works in faculty roles in the US and UK. Shannon’s work and exhibitions in the US, UK, and India have been featured in Two Coats of Paint, APlus, Hindustan Times, and BostonVoyager. Forrester’s paintings have been selected for inclusion in exhibitions and galleries of international scope such as collateral project at Kochi-Muziris Biennale, a solo exhibition at VOLTA NY, and at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Forrester regularly presents new research at a wide array of academic events in the US, UK, and Europe.

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Cover art by Kelly Clark/Keefe, Vulnerable Detail, Mixed media on paper, 8.5 x 11.

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Published

2020-02-28

How to Cite

Forrester, S. (2020). Painting from the Other Side: Tracing the Reparative Turn in Contemporary Practice. Art/Research/International:/A/Transdisciplinary/Journal, 5(1), 116–147. https://doi.org/10.18432/ari29486

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2020): Encountering Artistic Research Practices: Analyzing their Critical Social Potentialities

Section

Art/Research Theoretical Musings

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