An excerpt from Nick de Ville's essay for the exhibition Basil Beattie: Onward and Upward at James Hyman Fine Art, London, on view through January 21, 2012.

De Ville writes that "Since the late eighties Basil Beattie has been exploring something inimical to the strict tenets of the tradition of abstract painting out of which he comes: a range of simple forms with figurative associations… there is in his paintings a profound sense of an artist plunged – was it originally with some reluctance? – into image-making."