VANCOUVER, BC.- The Vancouver Art Gallery is placing its province’s young painters front and centre in the exhibition PAINT on view through February 27, 2007. A new generation of British Columbia artists is vigorously pursuing painting. PAINT examines this revival through the work of these emerging artists and the painters preceding them since the 1960s. More than 100 works are presented, including paintings from the Gallery’s permanent collection and regional museums, as well as works created specifically for the exhibition.

“The Vancouver Art Gallery is committed to showcasing the work of Canada’s most promising artists,” said Kathleen Bartels, director of the Vancouver Art Gallery. “Our city’s art scene is world renowned and it’s our pleasure to celebrate its emerging talent during our 75th anniversary year.”

While PAINT spans more than 40 years of artistic production, a primary focus of the exhibition is on the upcoming generation of painters in British Columbia whose practices bring renewed attention to the art form with fresh ideas and timely agendas. Representing this wave are Matthew Brown, Arabella Campbell, Tim Gardner, Holger Kalberg, Elizabeth McIntosh, Charlie Roberts and Etienne Zack. At a time when contemporary imagery is increasingly premeditated and digitally-synthesized, these artists share a preference for a liquid medium that lends itself to the spontaneous creation of images. Exhibiting an array of styles and techniques, they find common ground in their ability to explore new possibilities in the medium. From Holger Kalberg’s painted reconfigurations of architectural images found on the Internet, to Tim Gardner’s photo-realistic watercolours elevating the banal to the sublime, the content and approaches of the artists reveal an exciting and dynamic range.

“In Vancouver’s art schools, when it comes to painting, we're always looking to New York, Berlin and elsewhere for points of reference. PAINT presents an occasion to examine the current wave of extraordinary energy in the province and its local precedents to identify the spirit of painting on the west coast,” said the exhibition’s guest curator Neil Campbell, a leading Vancouver artist and instructor.

To provide context for this new energy, PAINT also features the work of artists Peter Schuyff and Jessica Stockholder – two Vancouverites who ventured outside the country to establish outstanding careers on the international stage. In addition, selections from the collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery and other west coast art galleries will display defining styles of British Columbia painting since the 1960s, encompassing hard edge geometrics, wild style figuration and the irony and humour of pop aesthetics. This selection includes artists Joan Balzar, Maxwell Bates, Claude Breeze, Brian Fisher, Graham Gilmore, Angela Grossmann, Roy Kiyooka, Attila Richard Lukacs, Vicky Marshall, Michael Morris, Mina Totino, Ian Wallace, Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun and many other key painters.

Paint: a psychedelic primer, a publication edited by Vancouver Art Gallery assistant curator Monika Szewczyk, will accompany the exhibition and includes conversations between Szewczyk and Campbell, McIntosh and Stockholder, Michael Morris and Schuyff, as well as essays by Thomas Lawson and Scott Watson. The Vancouver Art Gallery gratefully acknowledges presenting sponsor TD Bank Financial Group and the generous support of the Vancouver Foundation.