Photo: Ben Hawkins
TSM invited John Bunker to chair the public discussion for their exhibition ‘Rebalancing the Abstract’ at The Margate School of Art on 17 October 2026.
John Bunker is an artist and writer whose work is characterised by an obsession with those twin disruptors born of Modernism, abstraction and collage, and their continuing powerful presence in contemporary art. John exhibits widely and also regularly curates exhibitions which have included artists as diverse as Frank Bowling RA and Harland Miller. He also writes regularly about art, with numerous reviews, catalogue essays and articles to his name. In 2018 he founded instantloveland.com with Matt Dennis, a website dedicated to exploring the histories and potential futures of abstract art.
The discussion was an opportunity for the exhibiting artists Alexandra Harley, Gillian Brent, Melanie Ahmed and Sheila Vollmer to share our ideologies and experiences of working as abstract artists and offer an exchange of ideas around the languages of abstract art and the evolving nature of women’s practices.
John was the catalyst that brought the TSM artists together in 2019 by inviting Alexandra Harley to show in ‘Testing 123’ at Unit 3 in Bow, London and asking her to invite other abstract sculptors to participate in the show. Alexandra invited Gillian and Sheila and afterwards we decided to continue working together to share our histories, create opportunities for ourselves and invite other women and non-binary abstract sculptors to join us.
Here is the recording of the discussion.