20 x 20 x 2 cm
Bloc Projects, Sheffield. 6th – 25th April 2026
Curated by ‘A Bell is a Cup’ - Stephen Carley, Kate Jacob & Sean Wiliams
The First Round Proper is an exhibition about painting, split into two halves across three weeks. Each half features 48 artists from across the UK and Europe, all of whom explore painting and paint, in various forms and dimensions.
This text looks at painting as a three-dimensional experience, the making, the placement and the viewing, writing about the work from each one of these perspectives. The painter, whose concerns come from the intimate relationship with the self, materials, substrate; the curator who makes relationships between the works, and acts as translator between painter and viewer; and, finally, the viewer, where the life of a painting truly belongs.
The Painter
Painting is dead. Long live Painting.
Painting can ‘fuck right off’. All hail Painting the ‘King of Art’.
Oh Painting you are so old and tired.
Hey Painting, this is fun and new and funky and all that.
On repeat. A locked groove.
The fable of ‘The Baby and the Bath water’.
The baby is bruised and upset. The bathroom is soaking wet.
The mirror is steamed up. The soap is impregnated with hairs…
The exhibition last year at Bloc Projects was ‘A Bell is a Cup Until it is Struck’.
We had as our curatorial focus a set of provocations by John Hoyland.