Listening to an episode of PG Woodhouse’s “Jeeves and Wooster” on the radio the other day, I was struck by a particular turn of phrase spoke by one of the characters: “Throw your mind back to that occasion” It suddenly made me think how differently that sentiment would be said today: “do you remember?” Most likely. But say that phrase again and think about it: throw your mind back to that occasion. It’s much more poetic way of speaking, granted, antiquated and charming even, yet, there is something else, too - a much more palpable sense of time. Firstly, “throw” - an action taking time; your mind - imagine the scene you were in, in the past; to that occasion - a specific moment in time. The whole sentence opens up a sense of time which is not instant in the way “Do you remember” is. The ‘instant’ dominates us. Images are everywhere and condition our memories, also. Images are designed to be memorable, to worm their way into our subconscious and nestle there like sleeper spies waiting to be activated. It’s increasingly difficult to experience the world afresh, to see things without taking them for granted. This state of affairs is a powerful and maybe even dangerous challenge to an artist; to get beyond the general, the accepted, the immediate, and to search for deeper truths. Painting is an intriguing medium which takes time (often lots of it) to make something which is apprehended in an instant - at light speed. Yet this doesn’t mean that the work need be made in a hurry - as if that leads to an equal immediacy in the outcome. Our brains can miraculously apprehend, process and be moved by the most subtle detail. We can perceive space as rich as our experiences of it when we move, just through looking - if it is re-presented to us through the synthesis of effective art-making. To get to the (significant) instant takes time. Throw your minds back to the occasion when an art of time, patience even, was valued and celebrated not for any pedantry or meticulous attention to grandiose displays of craftsmanship, but simply in the acknowledgment of something done with a meaningful and fully believed in intent and without necessarily relying on the contingent, either.