This article brings together a text by Griselda Pollock and a visual essay by Jo McGonigal. The visual essay accompanies Pollock’s reading of an exhibition in 2024 at Castlefield Gallery in Manchester featuring works by Frank Bowling and Jo McGonigal. Framed by the twin questions ‘ What is painting doing? ’ and ‘ What is painting being? ’, it offers a comparative study of the two artists’ practices, exploring how painting functions as an active, spatial practice – a doing. The project combines Pollock’s direct and sensory encounter with the works alongside a parallel photographic interpretation of the exhibition by McGonigal in collaboration with photographers Jules Lister and Simon Pantling.
McGonigal et al. (Wed,) studied this question.