Keane’s deep gaze exposes human condition without fear or favour

There is a long and valuable tradition linking the artist with war: one thinks of the motifs of the Parthenon friezes, the shocking scenes portrayed by Goya, and the stylised imagery of Uccello.

John Keane was appointed by the Imperial War Museum as its official war artist in 1991, covering the Gulf War in 1990-91. Keane has gone on to cover the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the Rwandan genocide and the aftermath of the war in Angola. The earlier part of his career took him to the Falklands and Northern Ireland.

Keane has not courted controversy but neither has he shied away from the terrible truths and horrors to which his art, like the best war reporting, bears witness.

This selection of work covers some of his themes from the first Gulf War onwards, ending with the oil on linen Putin Variations II (2014). Most of Keane’s recent work starts as a digital image, which is transferred to canvas or linen and worked further. Putin Variations II shows the Russian president’s face obscured by pixellation. There are layers of meaning here but foremost is the notion of surveillance and anonymity, an oblique, if pointed, reference to Putin’s “untraceable” crimes.

Keane rarely depicts violence directly; his paintings often conceal as much as they reveal. A case in point is Jar Head from 2008 (the title comes from the informal term for a marine). There’s a sinister undercurrent to the work. The painting seems to show a misshapen mass of mutilated tissue atop shoulders, the implication being that the “head” could only be contained in a jar, like red jam. Using a similar approach, Bound shows an empty orange boilersuit, eerily familiar as the “uniform” of prisoners held by the US in Guantanamo Bay. By focusing on a universal image, Keane extends his meaning and the relevance of the work.

These are layered and textured works, built up using paint, textiles and other materials and it is their tactility and physicality that lends them depth and layers of meaning.

Keane is at the top of his game. A versatile, compassionate artist whose gaze penetrates some of the murkiest parts of the human condition.

Until September 23