Tucked away in a corner of Thomas Hardy's Wessex is a handsome brick vicarage mellowed by the centuries. On one side of the house is a beautiful loggia and nearby a lawn with sloping grass banks, whilst on another side is a yard skirted by a number of outbuildings. One of these is Julian Bailey's studio. Painted white throughout and heated by a log-stove in winter, it has a second floor that can only be reached by climbing a ladder fixed to one wall. Large in size and yet intimate in atmosphere, light floods into the studio. It is a world unto itself without any distractions from the outside.

Yet it does not feel still; rather an air of bursting energy and physicality pervades the working space. Every square inch is devoted to Bailey's art: from tables and surfaces scattered with drawings, trays of pigment, sketches and written notes to canvasses awaiting attention on long-legged easels. On the walls hang completed oils and gouaches. These are the survivors: Bailey is ruthless in what he discards.

A painter of extraordinary perceptiveness, he enters into the world of his subjects with humanity, insight and imagination. His paintings are marked by a distinctive kind of realism in which the complex structure of the world is reduced yet the emotions are heightened. For him the world is a magical box of possibilities. He paints what he observes and experiences: a moment in time involving particular individuals in relationship to one another, an interior flooded with unhindered light, the touch and smell of hand-made pots filled with herbs and flowers or the excitement and chaos of boats circling like sharks before a race begins. Whatever the subject, Bailey's paintings have presence and a sense of immediacy. The apparent spontaneity of the application of paint belies the well-honed skills needed to achieve such surfaces.

Time and place are important to Bailey, as shown in the narrative titles he gives to his paintings. Nearly all start life as in-situ drawings. Drawn in a matter of minutes in sketchbooks that fit into the palm of a hand, these structural drawings are stripped of irrelevant matter: Instantaneous and superb, they evidence Bailey's complete control of line and space. They also convey light and mood.

For Bailey, painting is about developing and furthering a distinctive visual language. Though remaining representational in the main, in his recent work there has been a noticeable strengthening of more abstract or structural elements. Scudding skies, once sweeping with billowing clouds, have been reduced to simple bands of colour or lost altogether; rows of bright shirts worn by gathering young folk have become blocks of colour laid out in strong horizontals; triangular sails have become elements of a more complex geometry.

With a strong sense of his own presence in his work, what Bailey gives us is a cornucopia of life, one in which he conveys a deep respect for his subject matter. Being true to himself and his art is for him a matter of conscience. It will keep him exploring humanity for a long time to come and for us will be a continuing source of inspiration and joy.