Celia White reviews the exhibition The Mystery of Appearance: Conversations Between Ten British Post-War Painters at Haunch of Venison, London, on view through February 18, 2012.

White notes that "The question of how painting, and representation in general, can make objects, ideas or impressions come into being can hardly be considered specific to these artists' time. Yet by the 1970s… these questions had become more pertinent for figurative painting, which sought a new identity in an artistic environment dominated by conceptualism. This exhibition reveals how the medium of painting prevailed despite the challenges of the avant-garde: how these artists were engaged in a dialogue about representation that did not ignore, yet operated separately from, the aesthetic norm."