John Hurrell – 11 May, 2026
Here it is a ‘double game' to critique the role of the artist while still embracing an unavoidable romantic ethos through the act of participation. (Assuming that the word 'cult' is denigratory.) Such written actions are obviously sticky. It can even be claimed they speak louder than non-written ones.
The twenty new emblematic paintings from Ralph Paine upstairs in St. Kevins—lined up in a row—all display the distinctive Paine graphic sensibility with its oblique semiotic symbols and unusual ‘sociological’/journalistic’ titles. Mainly figures and faces rendered dramatically on ‘pages’ in watercolour and gouache, they are framed, painterly and well considered as a unified conceptual project. Entry to the show is via the stairs from K Rd leading directly up alongside St Kevins Arcade.
Against an almost invisible backdrop of parallel ruled horizontal pencil lines, a hunched feeding eagle on the show’s invite is presented as a symbol of imperialist fascism. (My guess!) It is framed by an octagon and vertical columns on the two sides.
It seems to be overseeing the planet earth trapped in a ring of turbulent vegetative/watery chaos. Maybe this ‘ring’ is a symbol for an ecological nightmare and an even wider cosmic ruin. Perhaps the circle defines the limit of the artist’s limitations. (Though I can’t imagine this artist being daft enough to self-flagellate.)
Focused lenses continue looking at the activity of the gaze in this figurative, overtly symbolic, myth-oriented but ‘Poppy’ show. There are no geometric abstractions within the 20 works, of which there are five in each of red, yellow, green and blue. The gouache provides a warm granular opaque texture, not wispy and ethereally liquid—as in translucent watercolour.
Here it is a ‘double game’ to critique the role of the artist while still embracing an unavoidable romantic ethos through the act of participation. (Assuming that the word ‘cult’ is denigratory.) Such written actions are obviously sticky. It can even be claimed they speak louder than non-written ones.
Curious readers can also see Charles Ninow’s website for a short but excellent essay by the artist that discusses the implications of painting in a series, and the relationships between the included components.
<https://www.charlesninow.com/content/exhibitions>
John Hurrell
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Ralph Paine, 9:46 p.m. 12 May, 2026 #
There is an unwritten code shared among artists (the members of the cult, as it were) that we do not comment publicly about reviews of our work. However, given the number of what I consider to be factual errors contained in the review above, here I am compelled to break with that code.
First, the title of the review should read Paine at La Gonda not ‘Paine at St Kevins’.
Second, there is no ‘yellow’ section of the series but rather an orange section.
Third, the individual works comprising the series are numbered rather than titled as such e.g. Cult of the Artist I, Cult of the Artist II, Cult of the Artist III, etc. so it is not possible that they possess ‘sociological/journalistic titles’.
Fourth, rather than ‘no geometric abstractions’ there is a plethora of them: quatrefoils, circles, lozenges, octagons, a diamond, an oval, rectangles, lines, fractal shapes, etc. etc.
Fifth, there are (quite deliberately) no ‘written actions’ in the works apart from numbers, dates, and signatures. These, however. do not ‘speak louder’ than the ‘non-written ones’. How could they?
….
In art and thus in life, best to ASSUME NOTHING. So why 'assume' that the word ‘cult’ is intended ‘derogatorily’? And why award the eagle work a negative, destructive vibe? For me (and for what it’s worth), the eagle is not ‘feeding’ on the Earth (as in extractivism, etc.) but instead is carrying the Earth aloft. Perhaps then the eagle is the sovereignty of artists, our whatever-potentiality, our celerity, our lightness (as against any gravitas). Perhaps the ‘liquid chaos’ is a GERMINAL chaos. If painting is to be anything worthy today it’s gotta be a giving birth to new worlds: blue = ∞.
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