In the Garden of Magical Possibilities

Casper Scarth / Deb Burnstone / Joseph Dilnot /R&F Mo

2 - 18 May

‘Intuition gives outlook and insight; it revels in the garden of magical possibilities as if they were real.’ (Carl Jung)

This exhibition of colourful and lyrical paintings by four figurative artists celebrates the role of intuition in the creative process in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The four painters in the show are all storytellers who use intuition to guide their working process whether by allowing marks to trigger associations, tapping into memories or creating personal mythologies.

Thinkers, scientists and artists have long been trying to understand the seemingly magical eureka moments that human beings experience.Artist and educator Theresa Jane Hardman describes it as ‘direct apprehension of both internal and external realities, drawing on all forms of consciousness, including the embodied unconscious. It waits for meaning to emerge.’ Artists are always hoping that intuition will carry them through their working process – like surfers waiting to ride the next wave.

The show’s curator Deborah Burnstone was drawn to the work of Dilnot, Mo and Scarth because she sensed they are kindred souls who are tapping into something beyond everyday experience.

‘The works of these artists have an otherworldly, dream-like feel to them. They are colourists and visionaries.Their works have a spiritual quality,’ she says.

This show is especially relevant amid current concerns that AI will take over much of humankind’s productive output and undermine the role of our creativity. It questions whether generative AI can ever replicate the journey of decisions, rubbings out, happy accidents, moments of despair and sudden ideas that are contained within a single painting.

Deborah says: ‘I feel that now more than ever before in the age of AI we need to cherish works that are emotional, that are made by the hand and which reveal a deep and heartfelt expression of what it is to be alive today.’