Yesterday evening. Graduations of gloom as the dusk fell.

After work I went to a Private View in a small gallery in the West End. This is not the sort of artsy function I usually go to, but we once requested an exhibition catalogue (some years ago) and have been on the gallery’s mailing list for Private Views ever since. Also, I needed something to do between finishing work and meeting friends later in the evening (I suspected they would late).

I arrived in Cork Street about seven o’clock. As it happened, there were three Private Views going on in the little road, all at the same time, the guests spilling out into the street holding their wine glasses and making a raucous din. Working out which was my Private View, I went in.

A long room, the walls stark white, the paintings (a hundred or so) illuminated by spot lights. Entirely filling the space, so that there was only really jostling room, was a crowd of people greeting each other, talking to each other, kissing each other. No-one was looking at the art (it wasn’t really possible to look at the paintings since there was no room to stand back and get a good view). I was surprised at how many young people were there – well over half were in their early twenties (art students no doubt).

There was a time in my life when it would have been impossible for me to join such a gathering. I would have been overcome by shyness, and unable to speak to anybody. Those days have gone, thank goodness, and I pushed my way to the bar at the back, took a free glass of wine, and began looking at the paintings (as best I could).

The works were at first sight almost abstract, but if you looked at them long enough the separate elements merged into coherent landscapes. The artist (Hannah Woodman) had a talent for making the ordinary look special – hedgerows lined with weeds (such as hogweed and ivy), strands of barbed wire, hawthorn bushes, wet rocks dissolving into swirls, waves rolling onto empty beaches. All the landscapes were of Cornwall, and were set in an evening light. A wistful sadness suffused each scene. The paintings had titles such as “Summer Field, Gwithian”, “Spring Haze, Cornish Hue” and “Blue Waves, Godrevy”.

It was all very clever, and the “merging” was such a pleasing experience that I started to go round all of the pictures, staring at them until they “clicked” into place. This procedure did not go unnoticed…

As I completed a circuit of the gallery a tall, blonde, business-like women, aged about thirty, shook hands with me and said (confidently):

“I’m the artist.”

We discussed the exhibition and I told her how much I was enjoying it.

“There’s very much a theme of solitude in your work” I said.

“Yes, yes, people have said that” (as if conceding I had made a legitimate remark). “There is so much going on in my life, that getting out and painting is my way of working through it.”

These few words were all we exchanged before she abruptly broke off saying “Excuse me, there’s someone I must speak to before he goes” and turned away.