Painting Diary

Diary

REVIEWS, CONVERSATIONS & INTERVIEWS FROM OUR EDITORS

A Conversation with Kim MacConnel

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Portrait of Kim MacConnel, abstract painter and key figure in the Pattern and Decoration Movement

Portrait: Kim MacConnel. Photography credit: Jean Lowe

The Diary section is primarily dedicated to featuring conversations with painters and to critical writing covering current and recent exhibitions around painting. Our aim is to create painting conversations that are both intergenerational and worldwide.

"I let the light fall. I didn't have light in the studio, so I let the light go by until day became night. Once the light dropped, the color dropped too, and you could see black, white, and gray tones."

Our inaugural Diary entry is an interview between our Director and Head Writer Clare Gemima and painter Kim MacConnel. Clare's conversation with Kim delves into a five-decade-long practice, spanning the Pattern and Decoration Movement of the 1970s through the current day.

Long-Form

LATEST LONG-FORM SELECTED BY OUR EDITORS

MANIFESTO MANIFESTED for a
New Landscape and of Our Current Condition

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Our Long-Form section is dedicated to painters' written output: painters writing about painting. Despite this simple premise, we want to highlight the breadth of invention and play that can come about when painters translate their voices into textual form.

"Homogeneity is the new libido;
Sincerity is the new Viagra."

Our first piece comes from Vivien Zhang, a painter whose interplay between the mediated digital image and painterly mark has produced some of the most exciting and urgent paintings of the past decade. Zhang's piece, "Manifesto Manifested," is an ongoing and continually evolving text, reconstructed from exhibition to exhibition. Begun in 2018, this is the third iteration, and the first of many others we hope to publish over time.

What better way to launch our Long-Form content than with a manifesto on painting in the context of today.

Vivien Zhang's Echo Complex 3, 2021 - Abstract artwork with vibrant colors and geometric shapes

Vivien Zhang, Echo Complex 3, 2021, acrylic and oil on canvas, 200 x 180cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias Gallery.

Residency

OUR CURRENT ARTIST / WRITER IN RESIDENCE

Tim Wilson, artist in residence at Painting Diary, in his studio

Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Tim Wilson

Painting Diary hosts residencies for painters and writers in a studio space in the heart of Vienna, Austria. The idea is to provide a space in which artists can work, free from outside expectations or deadlines, giving them time to revel in the intimacy of connections made and people met.

Our inaugural artist in residence is Tim Wilson (b. 1970, Newport News, Virginia), who currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Wilson is a painter dedicated to shedding light on that which is often overlooked. Taking everyday objects and transitional spaces as his subject matter, he depicts them with a saturated color palette and soft burr that evokes a dreamlike quality.

You can read more about Tim's practice and the residency program