In the 160 years since French painter Paul Delaroche proclaimed “from today painting is dead”, many scholars and critics of art have echoed his sentiments. As each new concept or movement in the visual arts comes to the fore, judgment is passed on all that came before it. In Delaroche’ time, the advent of photography changed the usefulness of painting as documentation, in the 20th century, modernist painting transitioned paint from a representational two dimensional medium to art grounded in codes rather than images. In our contemporary culture of instant access and short attention spans, painting has once again reinvented itself.

By examining the validity and variety of painting in the post-modern era, The Antidote shines light on paint’s continued potential for innovation and influence. Uninhibited by traditionally expected technique, these artists have developed their own processes in order to best execute their contemporary concepts in this historically rich medium. The Antidote features new works painted for this exhibition by three generations of artists embracing paint as their medium of expression: William T Wiley, Herb Jackson, Rina Banerjee, Ulf Puder, Tom Sanford, Aaron Johnson and Jesse McCloskey.