Large abstract paintings offering a take on how consciousness feels

Last updated: 3 November 2026

By Tristan · Arts, exhibitions and creative culture

This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author's own and do not constitute professional advice.

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Cool Factor: 4/5

Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias is nine large oil paintings, all made this year. They hang in the gallery's Conduit Street space in Mayfair until 7 November. The Feeling of What Happens is free, step-free and her seventh solo show with the gallery.

The paintings are about consciousness. The gallery's press release says Ramsden uses painting as a way for the mind to look at itself. It compares that to "trying to bite your own teeth." That sounds heavy. On the walls, though, the first thing you meet is colour. There are washes of crimson, lilac, teal and rust, on canvases taller than most front doors. Moon-Person stood out to me, the colours burnt orange and plum under a cloudy grey-violet sky, with two pale green moons stacked in one corner.

What's on: The Feeling of What Happens

Nine oil paintings, all from 2026, at 51 Conduit Street until 7 November.

The show opened on 10 September and runs until 7 November 2026. Every work is oil on canvas, and every one is sizeable. Three measure 210 x 160 cm (82 5/8 x 63 in). Two are 220 x 170 cm (86 5/8 x 66 7/8 in). Two more are 230 x 180 cm (90 1/2 x 70 7/8 in). Finally, there is a landscape pair, Sounds from the Space Station and More Sounds from the Space Station, each 210 x 260 cm (82 5/8 x 102 3/8 in).

The title comes from Antonio Damasio's 1999 book The Feeling of What Happens. In it, the neuroscientist explains how consciousness grows out of the body and its emotions. Ramsden has also spent the past year emailing Brian Swimme. He teaches evolutionary cosmology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. The gallery has published their exchange as a booklet, and it is free to read online.

If you want the book behind the title, Damasio's paperback is on Bookshop.org, which shares its profits with independent bookshops. It is not light reading, but you don't need it to enjoy the paintings.

Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias, thirteen years on

From small minimal panels in 2012 to canvases more than two metres tall.

Ramsden was born in North Yorkshire in 1984 and works between London and a studio in the Dales. She had her first solo show at Pilar Corrias in 2012, while still a student at the Royal Academy Schools. She then graduated the following year. She has stayed with the gallery ever since, and this is her seventh solo show there.

Her record outside the gallery is solid too. In 2015 Tate Britain gave her Vanilla and Concrete as part of its relaunched Art Now series. The Aspen Art Museum followed with (In / It), her first solo museum show, in 2016. More recently, she has shown at the Mead Gallery at Warwick Arts Centre (2023) and with Wentrup in Venice (2024). This year she also showed at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. Peter Davies, writing for the Contemporary Art Society, thinks she is overdue for more and argues she should be getting museum shows.

The work has changed a lot along the way. In Swipe (2015), she made paintings with marks that looked like the smear a finger leaves on a phone screen. Later came interiors and furniture, broken apart into loose overlapping shapes. Her last solo show here, Desire Line in 2024, moved into the looser, more tangled painting that this show pushes further.

Colour first, ideas second

Seven tall canvases and one landscape pair, in a white Mayfair space.

Colour comes first in these paintings. That's also how Eddy Frankel saw it when he gave the show five stars in the Guardian. He shrugged off the consciousness talk and put the show's strength down to its "total, obsessive, overwhelming dedication to colour".

Frankel also noticed something that happens if you stay a while. The longer you look, the more the abstraction starts to give way. He asks whether he is seeing flower petals, or daylight falling through the slats of a window, and says each painting swings between still life and pure colour.

Scale matters here as well. At 230 cm, the tallest canvases rise well above head height, so you look up into them rather than across at them. Meanwhile the two Space Station paintings, hung side by side, stretch the eye sideways instead. The gallery is large, light, spacious and there is room to properly stand back. Though it did feel a tad overhung, one or two taken out might've given more breathing space to the whole installation.

How Mary Ramsden builds a painting

Wet washes and buckets of water first, careful oil on top afterwards.

Knowing how the paintings get made changes how you see Mary Ramsden's work. In the booklet, Ramsden explains that she starts by grinding dry pigment, from rock, earth, madder root and lapis lazuli. The first layers then go on fast with big brushes and her hands, pushed into the weave of the canvas. After that, she pours buckets of water over them to loosen areas off, and starts again.

Only once that stage is dry does the slow part begin. In her words, she will "slowly try to make sense of it on the wall with oil paint." So every canvas holds two speeds at once: a quick, wet, instinctive layer underneath and a careful, deliberate one on top. The gallery's own profile quotes her calling painting "thinking with the hand". That sums up the whole method.

That two-stage method is what sets her apart from the many painters currently making big gestural abstracts. Peter Davies, who teaches at the Slade, makes exactly this point for the Contemporary Art Society. Once you know how the works are built, he argues, it is clear she is doing something different from the rest.

Single Energetic Event and the washes that show through

Pinks thinning to almost nothing, red discs and black scribbles on top.

In some of the paintings, the first wet layer still shows through. Single Energetic Event is the clearest example. The whole canvas is pinks and reds, from deep raspberry at the edges to a washed-out blush where the paint has thinned almost to nothing. Pale swirls have been dragged through the wet colour, a bit like fingermarks in condensation. Meanwhile a tall, nearly black stroke runs down the left side, and small dry black scribbles sit on top of the softer areas.

Then there are the discs. Solid red circles float across the top half: one sits whole on the right, while another is sliced off down one side. Fainter outlined circles turn up lower down, too. Ramsden told Matthew Holman at Burlington Contemporary that she adds the discs as the steadier elements, then lets them wander. The title comes straight from her own writing, too: in the booklet, she describes making a painting as one big energetic event.

Perennial Cosmic Itch is the darkest of this group, all aubergine and plum. Two acid-green stripes run down it like the posts of a doorway, and a burst of hot pink glows near the top right. It works the same way as the title painting, The Feeling of What Happens, with fluid underpainting showing between harder-edged shapes laid over it. Sam Cornish, writing in the Brooklyn Rail, calls this group the most dramatic in the show, because of their strong contrasts of light and dark. He also finds them the most familiar, with echoes of earlier modernist painting, and that's fair.

Katabasis, Moon-Person and the Space Station pair

Here the wet layer almost disappears under drifts of small, packed marks.

By contrast, the other group is quieter and more surprising. In Katabasis, Moon-Person and Sounds from the Space Station, the first wet layer is almost entirely covered. Instead, closely packed, lightly painted marks build up into wide areas of colour. As a result, these feel less like a single moment and more like places.

Katabasis is the Greek word for a descent into the underworld. Fittingly, a thick horseshoe of brick red rises through the top of the canvas, over lilac and dusty pink. Below it, everything turns blue, from teal to a brighter cornflower patch at the bottom right. So the painting cools as your eye moves down it. This time, the red shape never closes into a full circle.

Moon-Person comes closest to a picture of something. The top third is a cloudy sky of grey-blue and violet dabs, with a bright green ring looping through it. Below that comes a wide band of burnt orange, then a dark plum slope along the bottom. In the bottom right corner, two pale green circles stack one on top of the other, almost like a small figure. Meanwhile, a third circle half-hides against the right edge. Davies singles out Katabasis and Moon-Person as the best proof of how far she has come since Desire Line. That's because big quiet areas are the hardest part of a painting to make work, and here they hold up.

The two Space Station paintings are the only landscape-format works, and they hang together. Both are made of jagged, broken patches of colour. In Sounds from the Space Station, lilac and soft pink break through a dark wine-red ground. More Sounds from the Space Station goes cold instead, all ultramarine and slate, with streaks of lime green caught along its top and bottom edges. Seen side by side, they show how differently one method can play out on two canvases of the same size.

Every canvas holds two speeds at once: a quick wet layer underneath and a careful one on top.

The Stars at Noon, Formless Witness and where the names come from

Most of the titles trace back to the booklet.

The titles reward a look at the booklet, because it explains where at least two of them come from. The Stars at Noon, for example, borrows a phrase Ramsden quotes from the philosopher Bernardo Kastrup. He uses it for the moment the everyday self steps aside and the rest of the mind becomes visible. Formless Witness sits in the same territory, and it hangs at the 210 x 160 cm size shared with Katabasis.

The Stars at Noon is also the bluest painting in the show. It is almost entirely ultramarine and navy, with a few flecks of red and a striped band of black and magenta on the right.

The booklet also has lighter moments. Ramsden admits she watches a lot of slapstick videos of people jumping out at each other. What interests her is the half-second yelp before anyone has time to think. That unguarded reaction is the response she hopes the paintings can trigger. That is a far more useful way into the work than the cosmology that surrounds it.

The weak spots in Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias

The writing around the paintings, the repeated format and the most familiar canvases.

The heavy cosmology. The booklet covers idealism, panpsychism, Plato and photons left over from the start of the universe. Parts of it are well written, but plenty of it is hard going. Cornish found the speculation dizzying and at times "faintly absurd", and Frankel waved it away in two words. Both still rate the paintings highly, which tells you the paintings don't need it. If the text puts you off, skip it and look.

The repeated format. Seven of the nine canvases are portrait-format and between 210 and 230 cm tall. With so few works, that sameness shows. The Space Station pair breaks the pattern, and the show is better for it. Taking one or two out, or swapping in a smaller or wider canvas, would have given the room more rhythm.

The familiar fast paintings. Single Energetic Event and Perennial Cosmic Itch are striking. But their big washes sit close to painting we already know, from Helen Frankenthaler onwards. The slower trio is where Ramsden is doing something you can't easily trace to anyone else. So a show weighted more towards those would have been bolder.

The flattening photographs. Cornish also noticed that the paintings reveal most at a distance, as whole images. However, the surfaces only make sense in person, where you can see the dry marks sitting on the wet ones. The images on this page give you the colour and the composition, but not much else. So go in person if you can.

Why painting like this matters right now

Gestural abstraction is back, and AI has given it a new argument.

Big, loose, gestural abstract painting fell out of fashion for decades. Now it is back in British painting, with artists such as Pam Evelyn and Megan Rooney in the same conversation. The paintings in Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias fit that moment, although her slow second stage sets her apart from it.

The press release also leans on artificial intelligence. Its argument is that images can now be made without any human experience. So a painting that shows every decision matters more. Ramsden makes the case more sharply herself. Speaking to Holman, she said an AI model offers "the immediate retrieval of the known thing". Her paintings, by contrast, start from not knowing where they will end. You can see that in the discs that refuse to close and the scribbles laid over finished washes.

It is a good argument, and the paintings make it better than the press release does. Still, it is a fashionable hook, and the work was heading this way long before image generators arrived. Back in 2015, Swipe was already about the marks screens leave behind.

Is Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias worth it?

It costs nothing, and it sits a short walk from two other good shows.

Entry is free, like most commercial galleries in Mayfair, and you can walk in from Tuesday to Saturday. Nine paintings is a focused visit rather than a long afternoon. So it pairs well with the gallery's second space on Savile Row, a short walk away. There, Rirkrit Tiravanija's (situational awareness) runs until 14 November.

Ramsden's show was one of nine in our Frieze week gallery guide, and most of that list is still worth a detour. If you would rather own something in this spirit, try our guide to affordable art in the UK. It covers prints and editions under £500. The paintings themselves are sold through the gallery by enquiry, and no prices are published.

Visiting Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias

Address, hours and access, from the gallery.

• Where: Pilar Corrias, 51 Conduit Street, London W1S 2YT, between Oxford Circus and Bond Street stations.
• When: until 7 November 2026. Tuesday to Friday 10am to 6pm, Saturday 11am to 6pm, Mondays by appointment, closed Sundays.
• Price: free.
• Access: the Conduit Street space has step-free access and a lift. The Savile Row space does not, so call ahead if that matters to you.
• Contact: 020 7323 7000 or [email protected].
• More on the artist: our Mary Ramsden artist page collects her shows and our coverage of her work.
• Next up: Ragna Bley's Oyster opens on 13 November.

Details come from the exhibition page and the gallery's contact page. Link last checked on 25 October 2026.

The verdict on Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias

This is serious, confident painting by an artist who has clearly changed gear. The colour is the draw, but the two-stage method is what keeps you looking. Katabasis and Moon-Person in particular show a painter finding her own ground rather than borrowing someone else's. It is also free and in the middle of town, but it closes on 7 November.

Overall, a solid 4/5 Stone cold. Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias earns it with nine canvases of serious colour and a method you can read on every surface. The slow, packed paintings lead the way, because they feel new. However, it stops short of Ice cold for two reasons. The cosmology around the show is harder going than the paintings, and seven tall canvases of similar size make the hang repetitive. Go for the colour, give the slow paintings the most time, and leave the booklet for the train home.

FAQs

Is Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias worth seeing?

Yes, if you like abstract painting and big colour. It is free, it is nine paintings in one Mayfair space, and it scored 4/5 here. The Guardian gave it five stars.

How much does The Feeling of What Happens cost?

Nothing. Entry to Pilar Corrias is free from Tuesday to Saturday, and Mondays are by appointment. I checked this on 25 October 2026.

When does Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias close?

It closes on 7 November 2026. The gallery opens Tuesday to Friday 10am to 6pm and Saturday 11am to 6pm.

Where is Pilar Corrias?

The show is at 51 Conduit Street, London W1S 2YT, in Mayfair. The gallery's second space is at 2 Savile Row.

Is Mary Ramsden at Pilar Corrias accessible?

The Conduit Street space, where this show hangs, has step-free access and a lift.

Do I need to read the booklet first?

No. The email exchange with Brian Swimme adds context, but the paintings work without it. Instead, read it afterwards if the titles make you curious.

Where does the title come from?

It comes from Antonio Damasio's 1999 book The Feeling of What Happens. The book explains how consciousness grows out of the body and its feelings.

How does it compare with her last show, Desire Line?

The paintings are bigger and freer. The strongest two, Katabasis and Moon-Person, cover the first wet layer almost completely. Peter Davies at the Contemporary Art Society sees those two as the clearest step on from Desire Line.

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