‘When the pattern of your attention has changed, you render your reality differently. You begin to move and act in a different kind of world.’

Lerner’s work considers the material properties of paint, the history of the medium, and how it can be used to explore the universal condition. As in the work of Jack Whitten, they use ‘formal as a means to arrive at subject’ with surface, edge, colour and composition being utilised to bring into being characteristics undervalued within our contemporary society. These are paintings unconcerned with specific topics but instead seek to raise questions around how we approach conversations, especially when it comes to the divisive issues of our times. Rooted in daily observation, Lerner’s sustained attention to the overlooked urban environment is echoed in the studio where all items are viewed with a curiosity for the application (or removal) of paint; bubble wrap and textured wallpaper sit happily alongside the traditional tools of brushes and pallet knives. Every work is a venture into the unknown and each finished painting has been ‘found’ via an extended process of looking, responding, distilling and condensing until, as Philip Guston said, ‘it feels not new but old’.