A preview in the Guardian alerted me to the exhibition.

I arrived soon after 11:00am on 12th June and found the exhibition at the end of a long entrance corridor. There was some installation work going on, condition checking and labelling backs of the paintings. The walls were also being touched up with white paint.

I remember determining stretcher size by 'arms width' so I was interested to learn that the same principle applied here.

I noted that there were some consistent vertical and horizontal 'tendencies' in this group of paintings. There were also colour palette consistencies and I noticed that some areas had been toned down after painterly activity had occurred and then the canvasses appeared to be re-addressed with 'full' intensity values.

The later additions were not always of 'primary' colours, pale values were also used.

The exhibition continued 'upstairs'!

There were two larger paintings in one room, one horizontal and one vertical.

Once again there were horizontal and vertical 'threads' in the narrative and toned down areas contrasting with later painterly additions.

The sum of the parts in all of the works appeared to be an abstracted 'space' partly over painted.

If that sounds glib, so be it; it is up to the viewer to engage in order to understand potentially every nuance of the Artist's privileged expression.

'Painting' is a wonderful enterprise for those that find the means to practice in 'it'! Historically only the very richest in society could afford to underwrite the artists who may have originally been engaged to produce altar pieces or small travelling altars.

That the 'altar pieces' may now be found in the corporate setting rather than the ecclesiastical one is no accident.

When the modern day artist finds a niche they may well keep repeating the formula leaving the audience to learn how to distinguish the 'significant' differences between one piece and another.

That is no different to the historical precedent.

I was lucky enough to have a few years (1978 - 1983) of independant studio practice and learned in that time the sheer delight of 'painterly' endeavour.

That I spent the following c34 years working in the Art Industry is just 'one of those things!'

I retired over 8 years ago and have gradually been finding my way back into 'enjoying' looking at art, sometimes in the hope of finding something with which I can fully identify.

I decided to set up a record of gallery visits starting with the Cézanne exhibition at Tate Modern in 2022...

...and on further reflection I will go back and look at these paintings again as what I was 'doing' c45 years ago was not so very far removed from the paintings in this exhibition!

I had intended to go back to the Megan Rooney exhibition 19th June 2025 but on the day decided to do a visit to Tate Britain taking in Edward Burra, Ithell Colquhoun and Ed Atkins as well as a stroll around the 20th Century Galleries.

The main sculpture gallery at Tate Britain with two sculptures on plinths in the distance.

Return visit, Thursday 26th June.

I did actually sit down in the gallery and write some notes so that I did not lose track.

I have every intention of taking time to 'look' at the paintings not least in the way that I addressed the 'Siena' exhibition at The National Gallery.

I have particular experience of building an interactive palette of colour within a painting so that the painting can be seen as a 'whole'.

I have a distant memory of a Julian Schnabel painting here!

"History painting where the paint brush marks are rendered anonymous in the overpainting until the final few tentative, partly fudged marks. The brush marks are consistently small relative to the scale of the canvasses."

"Colour may be rich locally but is negated when looking at the overall field especially in the largest painting. The flat matt elements, sometimes light colours float to the foreground; it seems that colour is for definition as opposed to interaction."

While not expecting the Josef Albers 'experience' I do hope to be engaged by colour paintings.

I did not feel a significant connection with these paintings. The greyed stripped back areas only seemed to connect in terms of focus, not colour.

I have a particular ongoing interest in large scale works. I suspect that the issues I have encountered are evident within this large painting. The close-up disconnection from the overall field seemed mostly to affect colour perception. The lavish and rich colour seen locally was lost at any distance.

The paintings shown opposite daylight windows are difficult to read!

To put it more bluntly, I did not really spend any time trying where it was not possible to see past the reflected light!