The Evolution Of Contemporary Painting in the Face of Claims of 'The Death of Painting'

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Art - History of Art, grade: 92.4, , course: BA(Hons), Fine Arts, language: English, abstract: Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s the pronouncement that painting was dead was often heard. In 1966 Andy Warhol had an exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery that featured hot pink and yellow wallpaper with large images of a cow's head. It was as though Warhol were saying that the painting was expensive wallpaper. 'Andy killed painting,' was the popular conventional wisdom of the day. But painting did not die, only the limited assumptions of what a painting was, or could be. Painting, freed of the restraints of a modernist creed, is reborn into an art form that is not only more accessible to the masses but also more multifaceted than it has ever been before. Once more the emergence of new art forms has forced painting to greater heights just as the arrival of photography did more than a century ago.

Nandita Mukand is a Singapore-based artist whose practice deals with the relationship with Nature and spirituality from within the contemporary urban context. Materiality becomes a tool for investigating the natural world and questioning the impact urban life has on our experience of time and the meaning we give to our own existence. In 2008, Nandita quit her corporate career of eight years with MNCs like Proctor and Gamble to devote herself fulltime to art making. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) from the LASALLE College of the Arts in partnership with Goldsmiths, College of London in 2014. Upon graduation she was awarded the most outstanding student in her class. In the same year she was invited by the Bilpin International Ground for Creative Initiatives (BigCi), Australia to develop her research and practice through their residency program. In 2015 she held her debut solo exhibition curated by the celebrated artist Kumari Nahappan. Recently she was invited by the Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Australia to be their first international artist-in-residence and to develop site specific work for their exhibition "Exploring BigCi". Nandita is an alumna of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and has a degree in Electronics Engineering from Lucknow University.