Painting Diary

Diary

REVIEWS, CONVERSATIONS & INTERVIEWS FROM OUR EDITORS

Margaret Mathews-Berenson (Peeky)
on the legacy of Deborah Remington

by Clare Gemima

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

Deborah Remington, Mirrors, Installation view, Bortolami, New York, 2024. Images courtesy Bortolami, New York. Photos: Guang Xu.

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.

"Everything she saw and experienced seeped into her head, her body, and was expressed in the work she made."

Our opening entry of 2025 is an interview between our Director and Head Writer Clare Gemima and Margaret Mathews-Berenson, the manager of the Deborah Remington Trust. Mathews-Berenson shares the many insights she has gained working on the artist’s estate since 2010—about Remington’s artistic practice, her many travels, and her brave and independent spirit.

Long-Form

LATEST LONG-FORM SELECTED BY OUR EDITORS

Divorcing Platitudes: Painting as Pure Sentiment

by Issey Scott

Our Long-Form section is dedicated to exploring current approaches to painting. Alongside some of our favorite writers, we also seek to publish written output from painters writing about painting. We want to highlight the breadth of invention and play that can come about when painters translate their voices into textual form.

"Say the exhibition’s title quickly, and you’ll find yourself uttering the words “divorce lounge”. This is exactly where the painting "Where dreams become reality” transports you. It’s awkward, it’s messy, you’re not sure where you should be standing, and how."

Our latest Long-Form entry comes from London-based writer Issey Scott, who explores *Diva’s Lounge*, an exhibition by Zurich-based artist Jasmine Gregory at Sophie Tappeiner in Vienna. In her piece, Scott delves into *Where dreams become reality*, a work that treads a precarious line between the sexy and chaotic; comprised of oil, glitter, studio floor dirt, and Gucci lipstick.

Residency

OUR CURRENT ARTIST / WRITER IN RESIDENCE

Photo: Courtesy of the writer and Painting Diary

Issey Scott

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 current writer in residence is Issey Scott (b. 1994, London, UK), who currently lives and works in London. Issey Scott is an art writer and occasional curator, especially interested in how bodily concerns including illness, disability, and health are communicated aesthetically. Her postgraduate thesis looked into the contemporary visual culture of happiness, and how contrived images are inherently ableist under late-stage capitalism. Her work interrogates the ways in which contemporary artists depict the body in unconventional ways, and she has recently written about artists including Zoe Williams, R.I.P Germain, Abi Palmer, and Morgane Billuart to expand upon these narratives.

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