T H E  S P A C E  O F  P A I N T I N G

The Space of Painting brings together the work of 9 painters practising across a range of idioms, all of whom engage with expanded conceptions of space beyond the formal or compositional constraints of painting itself. 

Maurice Blanchot’s The Space of Literature (1955) reveals strange paradoxes in the act of writing and the creation of a literary work. In trying to make something other from language, its ‘work’ is that which stands apart and distinct from its material source and represents the effort of writing to separate from that which contains it.

This is also the task of painting, because painting is intrinsically an act which creates something other from the world, our perception and experience. The endeavour to create this something other is to go beyond perception into the space of painting, which the work in this exhibition exemplifies.  In the realisation of their vision, these artists are engaged in a material discourse with indeterminacy.

Feauring: Heather Alderson, Susan Absolon, Iain Andrews, Keith Ashcroft, Peter Clarke, Graham Crowley, Jenny Eden, David Gledhill, Susan Gunn.

The Space of Painting

Rogue Project Space

Manchester

M11 1PU

April 4 – 25

PV Saturday April 4, 2-5pm

Curated by Ann Bukantas

Essay by Phil Porter

Opening times: Fridays and Saturdays 1-5pm and by appointment

Contact: philporter114@gmail.com

THE PROBLEM WITH PEOPLE

The Problem with People is an exhibition of 18 painters, focusing on different ways that artists deal with the figure in painting today. The somewhat provocative title refers to the difficulties and challenges often associated with the figure in painting, both in a literal or representational sense, but also in philosophical, ethical and material terms. 

The idea of (the) painting – which is not a ‘person’ – performs as a kind of surrogate or stand in for the body. This enables artists to see and re-see themselves through painting, be it through locating the figure inside pictorial space, emphasising the figure beyond the stretcher, notions of the figure with or without a body, the figure as gesture, a shape, a place, an outline, an anthropomorphic object, or through material itself. 

Curated by @keithashcroft 

Oceans Apart

24-26 King St

Salford

M3 7DG 

#theproblemwithpeople 

This talk took place at the closing event for ‘Parties’, my exhibition at Rogue Project Space in 2025.

I’m delighted to have been selected for the John Moores Painting Prize 2025. The exhibition opens in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool on Saturday September 6th and continues until Sunday March 1st 2026.

For the last week of the exhibition, July 21-25, Parties will be open each day from Monday to Friday between midday and 5pm.

Closing event Saturday July 26 from 2-5pm.

Artist’s Talk 3pm

Otto’s Big Couch Challenge 4pm