A new body of paintings examining historical citation, theatrical suspension, and the instability of representation. Embedding canonical images within contemporary compositions, Michael Corner collapses past and present without hierarchy. Meaning accumulates through sustained looking.
Michael Corner’s paintings examine how images migrate across time. In Cliché, historical references reappear within contemporary compositions that resist narrative closure, asking viewers to remain within uncertainty rather than resolve it.
Opening Reception
May 8, 2026 — 6:00–9:00 PM
Artist Conversation:
Sandrine Welte in conversation with
Michael Corner — May 8, 5:00–6:00 PM
Expanding on Welte’s exhibition essay, the conversation will examine temporality, historical citation, and the persistence of painting as a critical medium.
Cantieri del Contemporaneo Giudecca 211/B, 30133 Venezia VE, Italy
“Painting allows instability to remain visible.”
Living and working in Banff, Alberta, high in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Corner operates far from the conventional circuits of the art world. This distance offers him perspective, allowing an approach to canonical imagery with a distinct and penetrating focus. His practice engages painting as a site where historical images are reactivated rather than preserved. Working through layered citation and compositional suspension, his work resists fixed narrative and instead builds meaning through accumulation and duration.
Read essay by Dr. Sandrine Welte >
A reference is not a solution.
The past is never stable.