Group Exhibition: 'Generate/Alternate', Unit 3, ASC Empson Street Studios, London, 2016

In this two person exhibition curated by John Bunker and myself, we attempted to compare our contrasting process-based activities. Bunker with found street detritus that he forms into and abstract paintings and myself with layer upon layer of poured and painted household paints combined with digitally sourced graphic stencils. The overlap, which critiqued Clement Greenberg's 'purity' of abstraction by utilising popular cultural motifs, also ironically references his prejudice towards formalism. Here formalism is used expansively to include that which is outside its historically conditioned, self-contained, material remit. \n \nMichael Stubbs and John Bunker are abstract artists working with found mass/new media imagery. Stubbs with the interface between painting and the digital realm of images, clip art and texts. Bunker, by employing paint, print media, advertising and other urban detritus gleaned from city streets. Both of them combine self-reflexive criticality with a strong interest in the contested histories of Modernism. \n \nI showed two ink and spray paint works on paper and two paintings on mirrored backgrounds. The mirror elements in the paintings entice the viewer to see themselves viewing whilst switching back and forth optically with the densely overlayed painted surface.