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3 Although the dust has settled on the great art historical debates about the merits of abstraction versus figuration (and vice versa), and the situation resolved into a contemporary pluralism which allows of any personal mix that suits (at least in theory), every serious painter continues to face these issues on a daily basis. The two great drives of painting remain the same: the urge to record and the urge to order, and much of the best art down the centuries has partaken of both impulses. Thus Michael Vaughan's work, though appearing on the surface to be essentially abstract, actually deals with the transposition onto canvas of everyday experience in the real world. His principal subjects are figures, landscapes and gardens, surprisingly figurative themes for so formal a painter, whose primary concerns seem to be line, texture, and increasingly, colour. But study his work closely, and a mouth or a pair of legs might emerge from the interplay of bold shapes, or a garden lay-out seen in aerial view. The references may be oblique, but they are there. This summer, unexpectedly hot, gave rise to greater brilliance and lushness in Vaughan's Hampshire garden than he can recall for many years. Although not an obvious subject or direct influence on his work, his garden has indirectly inspired him, which is highly appropriate given that his new work engages with colour far more profoundly than hitherto. I am reminded of the relationship between Patrick Heron and his Cornish garden, which he used directly as a subject at two very particular periods of his life, but drew upon as a general inspiration in terms of colour and light throughout his career. Not deliberately aiming for it, Vaughan achieves harmony and beauty by accident, as it were. With his instinctive clarity of design, he orders his shapes, lines and colours to achieve the greatest visual impact. This intuitive approach lies behind all his work. His looser handling in recent years has been married to a greater interest in texture (witness the different supports he has painted and drawn upon, from canvas and hand- made Indian craft paper to plywood, ordinary brown wrapping paper and card), and to the properties of his materials. Thus his basic combination of oil paint and charcoal has been varied and enhanced by a potent use of oil stick, and collage has become a frequent strategy for subverting the unity of the picture plane, and implying more complex spatial dispositions. The linearity familiar from his previous work has matured into a blossoming of colour and expansive form. Look at Flock Thick Around, for instance, with its strong shapes counterpointed with a marvellously declarative use of oil stick and flicked paint. Composition, structure, rhythm are key signatures of these paintings and drawings, and Vaughan still makes rough sketches on scrap paper to explore ideas for larger works. In fact, he has spoken honestly of his fear of the white canvas (a feeling shared by many artists), and that the use of cheaper, less pristine materials, such as brown wrapping paper, can enable the artist to relax. In fact, one of the finest paintings here is done on such paper and entitled Our Mortal Nature. In this painting, colour is more integrated but also used in unexpected conjunctions: dark turquoise against orange, red and purple, with flashes of pink. Other authoritative images include the extensive Just Drift, the small intense Energy Form, the collaged Born Again, and the more sharply diagrammatic Silent Moments. With these and other new works, Michael Vaughan has given more complete expression to his vision of life than ever before. Andrew Lambirth, 2018 Michael Vaughan: Investigating Colour