London-based, Scottish artist Alistair Gordon makes paintings about painting, oscillating between artifice and artifact. Gordon’s paintings reference a form of trompe l’oeil illusionism that proliferated in c17th Northern Europe: ‘quodlibet’ (what you will), that favours the everyday or domestic object. This historic genre-language is an ideal vehicle to explore more contemporary questions of image-making, post-digital painting, and the politics of illusion.

The notion of authenticity is central to Gordon’s artistic enquiry. The viewer can be disarmed by the meticulous nature of this representation and the sense of authority communicated by its display. Gordon’s version shows an array of selected objects related to the process of painting, paper appearing as ‘pinned’ or ‘taped’ to a drawing board in low relief. This illusion creates questions about replication and the veracity of images as explored by philosophers including Baudrillard and Benjamin. In a world where our relationship with image-making and truth is stretched ever further, Gordon’s paintings take on additional meaning and poignancy.