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There is a series of works in the exhibition of recent paintings by Stephen Birch in which a painted landscape is obfuscated by an almost opaque layer of varnish. This layer, called patina (where it genuinely occurs), can indicate a work's antiquity, its hue in proportion to its age. In the terminology of art conservationists, the varnish might be said to have gone "blind" with time, that is, lost its transparency. But it may also be used-as Birch uses it here, already dark with pigment rhetorically, as a sign of age or period rather than the result of any real ageing process. Questions are therefore raised regarding the representation of 'reality' and 'history' through the use of materials.
The landscape in Birch's work is perfunctory, often no more than an horizon line separating the internal space of the painting into two fields, a three dimensional space which is, however, always qualified by excessive varnish as well as silver and gold leaf over the surface of the work. At this level the works openly contest the truth of painting as a means of representation (apropos Greenberg 's cause celebre) ; opposing depth of field to the immediacy of the surfaces. This is confirmed in another work, The Registration of Meaning, in which a still-life replaces the landscape as the normative subject. Yet our view is impeded by the same formal devices which suspend the gaze somewhere between the subject and the surface of the work. Our desire to engage with the real subject, to see it clearly and graphically, becomes conspicuous the moment we realise it is impossible. This effect is heightened in the perception of generic forms