The Classical

11–20 November 2016
Transition Gallery, London

 

The Classical brought together eight painters whose practices resisted the dominant narratives surrounding painting in the mid-2010s. Rather than pursuing novelty through style alone, these artists approached painting as an expansive visual language in which historical imagery, folklore, observation, ornament, memory and autobiography could coexist without hierarchy.

 

The exhibition's title did not propose a return to classical ideals. Instead, it acknowledged the way painting has always absorbed and transformed its own history. By 2016, the canon of art history had become an open archive: Renaissance frescoes, medieval manuscripts, Symbolism, Modernism, illustration, popular culture and digital imagery existed side by side, available to be quoted, reimagined or quietly absorbed. Throughout the exhibition, references emerge less as direct citation than as echoes—a compositional rhythm, a fragment of mythology, a decorative motif or a remembered atmosphere. Painting's history becomes material rather than authority.

 

Although stylistically diverse, the artists shared a confidence in the continued possibilities of painting itself. Across the exhibition, figuration, abstraction and narrative shifted fluidly between one another, suggesting that contemporary painting no longer required a single aesthetic position. Tradition and invention were understood not as opposites but as part of the same evolving language.

 

Since 2016, many of the artists included in The Classical have gone on to significant institutional exhibitions, international gallery representation and critical recognition, establishing distinctive positions within contemporary painting. Jessie Makinson has exhibited internationally and become widely recognised for her psychologically charged paintings informed by folklore and medieval imagery. Kate Groobey received the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize and has developed an interdisciplinary practice spanning painting, performance and film. Freya Douglas-Morris has continued to build a significant exhibition history following her inclusion in 100 Painters of Tomorrow and Bloomberg New Contemporaries. Aisha Christison has expanded her dialogue with Renaissance painting and architectural space through exhibitions including Giotto's Room. The practices of Jonathan Lux, Grant Foster, Alex Gibbs and Leon Pozniakow have likewise continued to evolve through sustained exhibition programmes in the UK and internationally. 

 

Rather than presenting a manifesto, The Classical documented a moment when a generation of painters, each with a distinct voice, briefly occupied the same space. Seen together, the exhibition offers an early record of practices that have continued to shape the landscape of contemporary painting over the past decade.