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Notes from the Field: Mimesis

In June 2013, a text by Dalwood on the nature of contemporary painting was published as the lead essay in The Art Bulletin, the quarterly art historical journal published by the College Art Association of America. A full-page illustration of a Dalwood painting from the ‘Orientalism’ series from 2012 featured on the cover of the magazine; and the painting subsequently purchased for the British Council collection in 2013.

The essay discussed the relevance of the idea of ‘Mimesis’ within a 21st century context. It questioned the contemporary context of the pictorial nature of reality itself and if historical precedents are no longer relevant in a post digital age.

Previous to this publication, Dalwood had two reviews published by The Burlington Magazine: ‘Gerhard Richter’ (London, April 2012, No.1309, Volume 154, p.284-286) and Patrick Caulfield (London, October 2013, No.1327, Volume 155, p.721-722); and his essay ‘Dexter Dalwood on Robert Rauschenberg’ was included in the 2012 Thames and Hudson publication ‘In My View: Personal Reflections on Art by Today's Leading Artists’, edited by Simon Grant.

In recognition of his critical writing Dalwood has been invited to judge the 2013 Burlington Contemporary Art Writing Prize; an annual award seeking to discover talented young writers, and offering the prize of a published review in the Burlington Magazine. In December 2013, Dalwood will present a paper on the subject of Painting Now at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art as part of the one-day symposium Contemporary Painting in Context, which accompanies the Tate Britain exhibition Painting Now: Five Contemporary Artists. The symposium is designed to offer a critical investigation of contemporary British painting, seeking to place this, and the works featured in the Tate Britain exhibition in particular, within new critical and historical contexts.