The group show, “Painting, Differently,” begins even before you enter the door: with a huge sheet of jute canvas crumpled and shaped on the floor like wildly colored rock with huge dots and splotches by Mit Jai Inn. Is it a painting with the character of sculpture? This piece sets the tone for a show that stretches the pictorial conventions and material qualities of what paintings could be. Simply speaking, painting refers to the act and object. An artist applies paint or other media to a surface typically using a brush. Its history spans as far back as 10,000 years ago when early man gathered coloured earth to rub images on rock. Materials and pigments used in painting have evolved since from plant-derived colors to oil and synthetics.

In Asia, the tradition of painting is even older than in the West as it came with the flourishing of the first civilizations. The trade routes never closed. Eastern and Western art have continued to influence each other, thriving in the originality of their cultural contexts. For this show, Asian artists spanning three generations who spent the formative years of their art practice in Europe show their engagement with the act and object of painting.

Mit Jai Inn is considered a pioneer of Thai contemporary art. Trained in Austria under Franz West, one of the leading European artists in the late 20th century, he works from a large open-air studio in Chiang Mai. Here his untitled and unmounted works are nailed on the wall sideways or hung from the ceiling with the canvas exposed showing their back painted in vibrant candy color blocks or stripes. In front, the massive works have paint applied in thick clumps like stiffened cement overlaid with dense, maddening applications of subdued shades. There is an energetic, performative quality to it because of its large scale that on viewing one is compelled not only to step forward for a closer look but to touch it. Two more bright jute canvas sheets playfully lie on the floor like deflated balls, unprotected from being jostled or stepped on.

This instinctive use of pattern as substance continues in Nicole Coson’s monotype prints on framed canvas where a series of black and gray patterns of what looks like overlapping netting and rickrack, are manipulated to propose both undulating movement and stillness. The young London-based artist has been known to experiment with various media with an expertise in analog printmaking processes and techniques honed during her studies at the Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. This is seen in a large print work of militaristic camouflage in red that takes on the notion of in-betweenness as elements of the pattern are made opaque to appear floating, intersecting and moving across three canvases that appear as one. Camouflage is a disruptive pattern that traces its historical use to war and conflict. What is it trying to conceal and protect?

In Aditya Novali’s works of black ink and paint on rectangle plexiglass, methodological repetition layers linear grids on grids with blocks of paint that appear smeared or blurred at first glance. On inspection, the work is tiered with condensed markings of ink – a dichotomy of material and substance that contrasts the flatness of the medium with gradations of applied pigments without added surface texture. Based in Central Java, Novali trained as an architect with further studies in conceptual design from the Netherlands. This reflects in his skill for composition and respect for material found in his oeuvre. In this work, while the cumulative markings are not immediately identifiable it is a made object that occupies a language for space and form.

These works bring to mind ongoing debates questioning if painting was a dying medium because what does it in mean to be a painter in this day and age of hybrid forms? There are no quick and easy answers. Maybe that is for the best. The show presents new positions for painting when under each artist the medium is used as a critical way of seeing and making albeit differently.

Words by Josephine V. Roque

Mit Jai Inn (b. 1960, Chiang Mai, Thailand) is considered a pioneer of Thai contemporary art. Defying the conventional boundaries of painting, both physically and conceptually, Mit Jai Inn investigates the materiality of the medium through a rigorous cycle of labor in which he adds, augments, overlays and erases pigment. Mit Jai Inn’s practice is a meditation on light and time, each painting closely related to the site where it was made. His large open-air studio in Changmai is filled with colorful, densely layered canvases spanning tables, hanging from rafters, and draped over frameworks resting on the floor.

Nicole Coson (b. 1992, Manila, the Philippines) is an artist raised in Manila and currently based in London. Coson works on a variety of media with a focus on analogue printmaking methods and techniques. Recently, working mostly with monoprints that explore nature vis-à-vis camouflage, a conversation between sign and signifier.

Aditya Novali (b. 1978, Solo, Indonesia) is an artist based in Solo, Indonesia. Trained as an architect, with further studies in conceptual design, Novali has an idea-based artistic practice. All his art, whether they be three-dimensional rotating dollhouses, abstractions of historical paintings, or geometric renderings of cultural practices, point towards finding the right form and material the work will take.