All Mixed Up is the – We ran out of money and we put this up instead show. I say yes please, can we have more of this!!! In fact I don’t know why galleries have needed all those massive budgets over the last few years. The Hayward could do 10 shows with the same light touch curation as Mixing It Up and still not have touched the sheer diversity and furious invention that has been going on while curators have stiffly twisted themselves wilfully pretending that painting will go away.

The whole thing is a bit of an accident, and certainly unforeseen. The show doesn’t make many claims for itself – simply stating this is a bit of what’s going on now – though the Hayward should fess up that the show is only a light sampling of what’s going on in London. Presently there’s a deficit of curators that are really excited or have a sense of urgency about what painting can do right now, what it can say and feel about this moment…. stretching from 9/11 through the Credit Crunch-Sub-Prime-loans – Brexit-Trump and the Coronavirus Pandemic. The show is basically like the type of Saatchi gallery show now with a loose broad title and a heap of artist flung out to see what sticks. Quite democratic or as nearly as the art world can get albeit filtered through one persons sensibility.

Mixing It Up could have been called the half blue show, as most of the work on the first level is pretty much in the blue or cold cast hues. It doesn’t help that the lighting design leaves you later on with the impression that you been in a gloomy dungeon. Which is strange as there are a number of bright vibrant painting there. While the upper level is lit quiet brightly.

Maybe the next show will be called mashed up!