Artists: Anthony Benjamin, Alexander Costello, Ron Fuller, Barbara Hepworth, Patrick Heron, Rebecca Riess, Richard Smith, Michael Stubbs, Claire Willberg.

Curated by Michael Stubbs

SPACE ODDITY takes a selection of twentieth century prints and paintings from the Atelier Gallery collection and places them side by side with works by contemporary artists. This juxtaposition points to the influence of ‘original’ British pop and abstraction on these newly produced works.

Pop and abstraction are often represented as historically distinct, a linear progress with the graphic utilitarianism of 1950s/60s pop overriding the gestural individualism of 1940s/50s abstraction. SPACE ODDITY aims to blur this dividing line and explore how the influence of historical pop and abstraction on the contemporary works is re-evaluated, sometimes as continuity, at other times antagonistically, but always with an understanding of the expanded painterly properties of optical space.