This exhibition, featuring recent paintings by Northern Irish artist Beth McAlester, questions how a generation gifted with peace defines itself apart from a society so heavily informed by past violence. Through her artwork, McAlester aims to critically engage with the cultural landscape of her home by creating a site wherein individual perceptions and dominant narratives can be opened up for critique. McAlester views painting as a discursive system in its own right; instead of one linear story of cause and effect, it comprises a vast array of parallel trajectories, exposing a gap between ‘factual’ documentations and the various reinterpretations around us.

In this exhibition, rather than directly addressing any overarching political system, McAlester draws inspiration from the complex ways in which the Troubles and it’s legacy inform everyday life in Northern Ireland today; weaving through a myriad of social and cultural realities to ask what constitutes peace and its conditions of possibility.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a panel discussion and music on the afternoon of Saturday 18 October – find out more details here.

A Bloomsbury Festival Production supported by The Bedford Estates and presented by City Lit as part of the New Wave programme, a platform for emerging talent.