Usually, when we think about painting, we think of a picture on a canvas hanging on a wall.
From Cambridge Dictionary:
Painting
noun UK /ˈpeɪn.tɪŋ/ US /ˈpeɪn.t̬ɪŋ/
A2 [ C or U ] a picture made using paint:
The walls are covered in oil paintings.
an exhibition of 19th-century French painting
A2 [ U ] the skill or activity of making a picture or putting paint on a wall:
We were taught painting and drawing at art college.
When we bought the house, we had to do a lot of painting and redecorating.
(available on https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/painting)
Wikipedia offers a definition which allows a more open interpretation of the medium:
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, colour or other medium to a solid surface (support base). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and airbrushes, can be used. The final work is also called a painting.
(available on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painting)
Yet artists have transformed such a traditional medium, and the understanding we have of it, by changing its appearance to better express the idea behind their work.
A powerful example of this transformation is the exhibition “Violent Amnesia” by the Colombian artist Oscar Murillo (Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, until 23rd June) where his landmark black canvases are both amassed on the floor and hung from metal poles. The colour’s palette is erased and welcomes only black pigment. Such a halt inevitably recalls in the viewer’s mind despair and grief, and anything we knew about the-picture-hanging-on-the-wall vanished in a sea of darkness and uncertainty.
Murillo has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2019 (the exhibition will open to the public on September 28th at Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent) and “Violent Amnesia” is one of the shows which informed the jury selecting this year nominees – Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo, and Tai Shani – offering, then, a cultural excuse for a day outside London!
