At a time when artists may work without obligation to medium, why choose the materials of painting? What does it mean for an artist to assume the role of painter today? And just what is at stake for a new generation committed to painting?

Painter Painter presents new work by 15 artists from the US and Europe in a focused survey of emergent developments in abstract painting and studio practice. With an expanded series of public programs, it also considers the ever-shifting role of the painter in contemporary art and culture, which remains as fluid as the medium itself.

The exhibition posits abstract painting today as a means, not an end. For these artists, painting is a generative process—one that is rooted in the studio yet open and receptive to the world. Here new languages of abstraction and eccentric methods of making are freely pursued, crossing paths with sculpture, poetry, film, music, performance, design, publishing, craft, and fashion. Thus painting becomes a conduit—a way to make contact beyond the closed frame of their formal invention.

The Walker’s first group painting show in more than a decade, the exhibition features Matt Connors, Sarah Crowner, Fergus Feehily, Jay Heikes, Rosy Keyser, Charles Mayton, Dianna Molzan, Joseph Montgomery, Katy Moran, Alex Olson, Scott Olson, Zak Prekop, Dominik Sittig, Lesley Vance, and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung.

As a complement to the exhibition, a series of studio visits with the artists offers an open-ended look at their interests and working methods. The online Studio Sessions—a collection of dialogues, texts, and visual essays—are as varied in approach as the work of the artists themselves.

Exhibition co-curators: Eric Crosby and Bartholomew Ryan