Liam Ainscough

This year Standard Collective brings it?s seventh international exhibition to Bolton Art Gallery. For almost a decade the group has deepened their artistry and friendship via their exhibitions, working in a spirit of close co-operation and lightly defined boundaries. Their evolving dynamics have generated art projects which allow for both cohesion and difference. While planning their first exhibition in 2016 members of Standard met Elmar Brinkmöller, a leading figure of the independent art group Raum für Kunst in Germany. This meeting led to invitations for the group to exhibit in Paderborn?s Raum für Kunst Gallery. During the Covid lockdown, digital work was forwarded for exhibition at the Forum Junger Künstler, Paderborn?s civic gallery.In ?Lines in the Sand? Standard invited the Paderborn artists to share an exhibition space to explore their experiences of a changing Europe. The title was suggested as a starting point for visual responses to these changes. The Standard/ Raum für Kunst relationship was born at the onset of the political upheaval caused by calls for Britain to leave the European Union. The group considered and produced work reflecting the immediate impact and ongoing consequences of Brexit, but UK-EU relations are by no means the only salient issue for this international artistic co-operation. All of Europe has to contend with the rise of various ethno-nationalisms, calls for cultural conservatism, even claims about the need for increased isolation. Europe?s lines are being drawn and re-drawn at all levels. Some are abstract, legal and economic, or military and political: these inevitably connect to changing lines and contours of private and public feelings, attitudes, and sympathies. The artists exhibiting here differ in their interpretations of the theme and their modes of expression, but their sharing of space and commitment to ongoing international co-operation is a vote of confidence for creative and peaceful resolutions