Simon Bayliss cuts through the "cacophony of visual noise" and writes about some painting highlights from the 2012 Frieze Art Fair in London.

Bayliss calls out works by Kevin Cosgrove, Peter Peri, Ellen Gronemeyer, Robert Overby, and 17th century master Margareta de Heer, "paintings which seemed curiously unaligned to the usually manicured algorithms of established gallery art. A commonality is that these works are layered with meaning, and not every layer makes sense. There are paradoxes and ironies, triumphs and failures, and intentional or not these aspects plumb depths, and thus the work hums to a different, more enlightening tune."