There are arguably two major critical attitudes that are currently applicable to a discourse of the validity of painting. There is of course the well-worn debate over the death of painting, an argument that concludes that painting has reached it’s check-mate and cannot go beyond this endpoint; leaving it to only retread previous paths and kept valid only by the conservative art market. We at UnMasterclass clearly do not believe this, though would also say that it is true for a lot of painting currently being put out there.
The other attitude is that painting is still vital and is still going strong, able to constantly be re-born in new and relevant ways to the contemporary (art) world. In this argument painting not only depicts and responds to the world we inhabit, but also seeks to become a hybrid art form, fusing and parasitically responding to other (and new) media in order to remain current and vital. In this second argument the form of the painting might not use paint, canvas, the brush or be flat. It is left to the approach and conceptual base of the artist that retains their home in painting. Thus painting can stillremain outside of the conservative system and remains radical; Of course painting can still be radical when it still involves the brush, canvas and paint in it’s armoury. That painting is responding to the times, both in subject and in the technology it can employ is only natural, one only has to look to apparatus such as the camera obscura to acknowledge that painting has always used and responded to the times. So it is natural that today’s painters use the brush in photoshop, paint with a video camera and use the internet as the modern day equivalent of setting the easel up in front of a stunning vista en plein air. To see the latest UnMasterclass oil painting streaming from the traditional artists studio through fibre optics to your computer please follow this link http://vimeo.com/29768883
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