Miles McAlinden describes himself as a conceptual abstract expressionist. He was born, raised, and educated in England, but he has lived and worked most of his adult life in Norway. He is possibly the first artist in Norway to work with a conceptual approach to painting. As early as the 1960s, he incorporated text into his paintings, such as the phrase Things out of sight still exist. This statement, and others, appear and reappear throughout his paintings.

The exhibition title, "Adventures in Pictorial Space," refers to the pictorial space he explores or what a painting is. Traditionally, a painting consists of a stretcher, a canvas and paint. A stretcher is usually a wooden frame around which the canvas is stretched, invisible when the painting hangs on the wall. McAlinden refers to the stretcher as the skeleton of the painting, while the canvas is the skin.

With playfulness and wit, he explores the components of painting. By cutting into the stretcher and the canvas and twisting them, the stretcher no longer becomes just an invisible structure but a visual element in something approaching a sculptural object. He might choose to mount the work so that it protrudes from the wall, the back of the painting then becoming equally important as the front of the painting.

A brushstroke is also seen as an essential element of a traditional painting, and in several works, he lets the brushstroke play the main role, as in "A Brushstroke Trying to Escape its Pictorial Space." Here, a black brushstroke, which seems to have been applied to the canvas with great force and speed, explodes beyond its canvas and onto its frame.

McAlinden uses paint to describe a field of space, often working in flat black and white and shades of grey - as in one painted proclamation, "When in doubt, use grey." In this sense, he is not a distinct colourist. He plays with the brushstroke as a concept, as when he perforates canvas with a knife, drawing the form of a chair, a brushstroke or a text. He draws in the canvas, not simply upon it. He thus deconstructs the painting; he twists and turns it and makes the components of the painting into motifs themselves.

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Miles McAlinden (b. 1937 in Goole, England) has had a long career and expansive exhibition history with 24 solo shows and 45 group shows on his CV. Highlights include solo exhibitions at Kunstnernes Hus (1982), Trondhjems Kunstforening (1986), Galleri LNM (1980,1988), Tegneforbundet (1993), and Hordaland Kunstsenter (1996), to name a few. Between 1973 and 1994, McAlinden participated seven times in the annual 'Høstutstillingen.' He participated in 1959 and 1961 at the yearly group show "Young Contemporaries" at R.B.A. Gallery in London. The 1961 edition has remained the most iconic, as it marked the start of British pop art. McAlinden has also spent much of his career teaching at art schools and academies in England, Finland, Sweden and Norway. He was educated at Leeds College of Art (1955-1959) and Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (1959-1961). McAlinden lives and works in Flesberg and Oslo.