Surface Tension: British Painting in the 1990s

Examination of British painters who survived and flourished during the YBA-dominated 1990s, united by preoccupations with surface, gesture, and the physical act of painting. About In '90s Britain, the art world was dominated by the conceptual hegemony of the YBA movement. Hirst, Emin, Whiteread, Lucas and their peers commanded tabloid headlines and museum surveys alike with their readymades and installations. Surface Tension examines how a small group of British painters survived, and even flourished, in this climate. They are each distinctive and important voices, yet no less the product of their age. Working apart, they arrived at strikingly common ground: a shared preoccupation with surface, gesture and the physical act of painting. To consider this group as an ensemble is to understand something of the cultural pressures, even siege mentality, that forged the strength of their work. Reports of the death of painting were, as ever, greatly exaggerated. Read more Toggle Painting