Andy Parkinson reviews the exhibition Form/Function, curated by Lisa Denyer and Matthew Macaulay, at Piccadilly Place Manchester, UK, on view through until September 22, 2013. The show features works by Brendan Lancaster, Joe Packer, Karl Bielik, Lisa Denyer, Matthew Macaulay, Melanie Russell, Phoebe Mitchell, Rachael Macarthur, Sarah McNulty, and Terry Greene.

Parkinson writes: "At Form/Function they bring together work from ten artists in a difficult space, an unoccupied office block at Piccadilly Place, Manchester… In a domestic environment [the works] in the exhibition, might function as decoration, (in my view a more worthy function than is often allowed), but not here. These forms don’t really adorn the space and make it more beautiful, they are too small for that, and the space too imposing, but they do make it more interesting, and seem to highlight aspects of the environment that I would quite literally have overlooked. The exhibition also poses questions about the what, the how and the why of painting, in other words about how abstract painting functions as well as what its function might be."