Sam Cornish considers the collages of Francis Davison on view at Austin/Desmond, London through May 31, 2012.

Cornish writes: "Across media the presence of collage can be felt in startlingly inexplicable presentation and dissonant juxtaposition. [Francis] Davison differs in that the separate elements in his collages worked toward coherence rather than dislocation. His aim, aided by the tonal and textural similarity of the papers he worked with, was integration, the creation of total, comprehensible images; instead of suggesting a shocking or unnerving entrance heightened by incongruity and incompleteness, he posited restraint, an ordered and perhaps faintly melancholy withdrawal."