LONDON.- Gagosian Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by Philip Taaffe, his first-ever solo exhibition in London. Taaffe’s paintings are the slow product of wide-ranging meditations on the interrelation of forms and images in art, nature, architecture, and archaeology. Filtered through a critical and dynamic relation to the history of abstract painting, Taaffe’s oeuvre is remarkable for its visual exuberance and intricate craft. In a single work he might combine the gestural impulses of Action Painting with the mechanical processes of silk-screening, as well as relief printing, marbleizing, traditional gold-leaf illumination, and subtle collage processes that are entirely of his own invention. Through these elaborate methods he composes dazzling schemes of great eloquence and beauty, often combining deeply personal visual reflections with