Pictures need titles — if only to guide us into the work and suggest what we should find there. Sadly John Hounam’s Recent Paintings, on show until October 15, are untitled. There they hang, on the white walls of this ground floor space, looking down on the visitors without giving a clue as to what they are called, or even what they cost.

Both pieces of information are essential if one is to glean everything needed to understand the show. The price suggests the artist’s worth; the title enables the viewer to ponder the relationship between the title and the work. That said, John Hounam has placed a small explanation besides each body of work. The pastoral scenes, for example, are works in progress and sized just 10x12in —any larger and they would not have fitted on to his portable easel. But where had he placed the easel? I would like to have known.

The acrylic work of the Radcliffe Infirmary, painted when the main building had been demolished to reveal a big summer sky made visible by the demolition, is given a brief description. Nine large portraits line one wall. Each offers a different glimpse into human nature and humankind. But we are not given their names.

The one thing that does come out of this exhibition is the artist’s ability to change styles and apply different techniques and mediums to a canvas. It is as if several different artists are exhibiting their works. The pastoral scenes, for example, have been given a very light application of paint, while the paint on several of the portraits has been applied thickly.

John Hounam’s paintings have been exhibited in both Modern Art Oxford and the Barbican, London. His next exhibition in Oxford will be of flower paintings at the Churchill Hospital.