Painting as a Foreign Language.

Painting as a Foreign Language was a group exhibition of twenty-three British artists curated by Professor
Gerard Hemsworth that formed part of the 25th São Paulo Biennial, 2002. The aim of the exhibition was to
highlight the resurgence of painting as a vital practice in the British art environment.
A fully illustrated catalogue published by Editora Cultural Inglesa (ISBN 8588116073) accompanied the
exhibition, and included an essay by Suhail Mallik.
Related Artists: Alain Miller - Bob and Roberta Smith - Brad Lochore - Clare Woods - Claudia Marchetti -
Daniel Sturgis - David Thorpe - DJ Simpson - Glenn Brown - Jane Harris - John Chilver - Kathleen
Mullaniff - Liz Arnold - Machiko Edmondson - Mark Wallinger - Michael Raedecker - Michael Stubbs - Paul
Morrison - Perry Roberts - Peter Davies - Richard Kirwan - Simon Linke - Sybille Berger
Mullaniff contributed
The Storyteller, a large-scale (18 foot) painting comprising seven wood and gesso panels inscribed with
painted and drawn motifs.
‘For the form and content of The Storyteller, Mullaniff drew on her archival research into the home as a place
laden with memory and cultural identity, which are reflected in domestic memorabilia and decorative
artefacts. Mullaniff has explored these issues through paintings that encompass the use of printed fabric,
photographic imagery and floral illustrations, reconfiguring past design motifs and their cultural connotations
into a contemporary context. In The Storyteller, Mullaniff repeated and cropped a basic rose motif across the
surface such that the colour appeared to fade where it was absorbed into the gesso surface. The motif was
derived from Mullaniff’s research into the book of prints, Les Roses, by Pierre-Joseph Redoute, a French artist
of the late 18th/ early 19th century, complemented by investigations into the patterns used for textiles,
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wallpaper and lace ornamentation dating from 1830 to 1900.’