A path through all the patterns | Kate Montgomery at Long & Ryle

Painting Apron, 2021, casein on birch panel, 37x30cm, courtesy Long & Ryle

A strange thing happened at the private view of Long & Ryle’s solo exhibition of the paintings of Kate Montgomery, in Pimlico on Wednesday evening (June 29th). The wine was flowing, and there was a convivial atmosphere, as the Brighton-based artist, up for the evening, held court. But, in any photographs taken of the party, there won’t have been many faces in shot: just lots of backs of heads. I’ve never been to an art opening at which so many people spent so long looking at the art.

Montgomery creates dream-like scenarios, in which young women and girls inhabit spaces which are characterised by a juxtaposition of patterns. There are patterns on the curtains, patterns on the floors, patterns on their clothing, curvilinear patterns of nature through the window, patterns on the back of mirrors held up in front of faces. The patterns clash, of course, but also – strangely and rather magically – they complement one another. The show, naturally enough, is called Pattern Book.

The characters who inhabit the frames are usually inside, looking out, but also outside, looking in. There’s a lot of dreamy staring into who-knows-where. The boundary between home and garden (and thus society and nature) is often conjured away: there’s a scent of the surreal pervading each scene, bringing to mind Leonora Carrington, with a hint of Paula Rego.

Montgomery paints with casein on birch panel – a method dating back to pre-Renaissance times. Her paintings, she says, are influenced by Moghul miniatures, as well as medieval cloisonné and illumination. And all that attention to detail calls the Pre-Raphaelites to mind. Which is apt, as Tate Britain, round the corner, is currently showing ‘The Rossettis’. What a great pairing the two exhibitions make.

The mini worlds Kate Montgomery creates are busy, but never crowded: there’s so much to look at, and the perspectives are so flattened, you don’t know where to start, or when to finish. Hence, I guess, the reaction of the guests at the private view. The artist creates poetic slices of narrative, which suck the viewer in, imagining the before and the after, seeking a path through all the patterns.