There are painters who want to tell you what a painting is about before you have had the chance to stand in front of it. Ian Rayer-Smith belongs to the far more interesting category of artists who trust painting to do its own heavy lifting. Instead of kindly asking your attention, Ian Rayer-Smith’s paintings take it—preferably by the collar. They arrive with force: vivid, materially charged, and often monumental, full of energy, pressure, and painterly conviction. Based in Manchester, Rayer-Smith has built a practice that draws from the Old Masters, contemporary culture, abstraction, and figuration, but never feels burdened by influence. If anything, he seems to enjoy throwing these histories into the same room just to see what survives. Quite a lot, as it turns out.