To open our 2004 programme of exhibitions, Art Space Gallery is delighted to bring together five young painters who have graduated within the last three years and who share a belief in the vitality of painting.

The most recent graduates are Joanna Henley and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye both of whom completed their training in 2003 from the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal Academy Schools respectively. Esther Heylen graduated from the Slade in 2002 and was awarded a place with bursary support on the 'Drawing Year' at the Prince's Foundation during 2003 where she also received the Inga Bord-Scott prize. Gideon Rubin is from Tel-Aviv, Israel, and following four years at the School of Visual Arts in New York he trained at the Slade School of Fine Art, graduating in 2002. He has since exhibited in several group shows in London and Hamburg and has had a solo exhibition in Tel-Aviv. Rebecca Skertchly trained initially at the Slade and then at the Royal Academy Schools where she was awarded her Postgraduate Diploma in 2001 along with the British Institute Fund Prize. Since then she won a major prize at the first Royal West of England Academy Open Exhibition and has exhibited in a number of group shows in London.

The five painters selected for this exhibition have one other thing in common, they are all figurative painters who are dealing with an aspect of reality. We hope by showing the work of these young artists together to reveal how, through the language of painting, they each capture reality in their own very different ways.