John Moores contemporary painting exhibition: An Ornamental Hermit (Shanghai) An Alpine Biodome (Liverpool)

First held in 1957, the John Moores Painting Prize is the UK's best-known painting competition and is named after Sir John Moores (1896 - 1993), the founder of the prize. The competition culminates in an exhibition held at the Walker Art Gallery every two years, which forms a key strand of the Liverpool Biennial.

The principle of the exhibition is to support artists and to bring to Liverpool the best contemporary painting from across the UK. The exhibition featured 45 works, selected from around 3,000 submitted, features paintings with subjects on contemporary themes in society as well as contemporary approaches to painting.

The intention of including British prize winners in the Shanghai John Moores Exhibition (and the inclusion of the Chinese winners in the Liverpool show) was to place this contemporary painting exhibition in an international context and to establish the John Moores Prize within China, leading towards a cross cultural dialogue about the state and direction of contemporary painting.

In this exhibition Geraint Evans' work is concerned with the perception of landscape as a cultural construct. ‘An Alpine Biodome’ responds to Umberto Eco’s observation of Disneyland which, he says, ‘not only produces illusion, but…stimulates the desire for it’ (Travels in Hyperreality’ 1975). ‘An Ornamental Hermit’ is concerned with this curious invention of the 18th century English Landscape Garden tradition. As Edward Harwood writes: ‘The ability to maintain a hermit was both an assertion of material well-being and an expression of an apotropaic allegiance to a staunchly anti-material system of values’.

• http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walke...
• http://britishcouncil.org/china-arts-jm....
• http://www.geraintevans.net/index.html
• http://www.shanghaigalleryofart.com