Lots for the local collector in Boyle

VISUAL ARTS:'A RED SEAL attached to work indicates that the work has been sold." So reads the explanatory note in the catalogue for the Boyle Arts Festival's 20th exhibition. And, due in no small measure to the efforts of the show's curator (though he doesn't describe himself in those terms), Fergus Ahern, there were many red seals in evidence just prior to the official opening of the festival.

Over the years Ahern has built up a local art-buying audience for the event, and, while he acknowledges that things are much more difficult this year, he is happy that work, particularly work at the lower end of the broad price range, is selling. As he notes, as well, many of the artists have priced their work with the current economic climate in mind.

Ahern is a collector himself. He has that distinctive passion for finding and acquiring something that surprises and intrigues him, and his willingness to explore art that is new to him has been reflected in the evolving shape of the annual exhibition. It’s also contributed to a remarkable civic undertaking in the form of the now-extensive Boyle Art Collection (selected works from which are usually on view at King House).

The exhibition is a sprawling affair, not unlike the RHA Annual show in its way. It’s populist to a degree, partly by virtue of its sheer variety. The emphasis is on traditional media, though photography has gained a secure foothold. Sculpture, in the conventional sense of three-dimensional representations in bronze and other materials, always features prominently, which is rare enough these days.

One could argue that the show is too populist and not unduly challenging, but that is not quite fair. Within its parameters, there is certainly challenging work on view, and the audience is not the specialist art world one that accounts for the attendance at many contemporary exhibitions, but much more broadly based, which is great.

What’s also noticeable is that artists make a real effort for Boyle, because the festival has a good reputation. As with the RHA, work is more or less crammed in, but it’s somehow okay in the context.

Sculptor Sarturio Alonso strikes an exuberant note with two quite different pieces. One is a three-dimensional photographic head of John Carroll. It greets you as you enter King House and it's quite striking, even disturbing in its hyper-real strangeness. Another, The Useful Elm, is a witty exposition of the uses of elm wood in which various objects explode out from a large-scale, turned-wood pepper pot.

In quite a different vein, Eilis O’Connell shows two beautiful cast bronzes, each displaying her impeccable sense of form and finish.

Barrie Cooke habitually makes small oil studies of subjects that later appear in full-size paintings, and, though he often puts the studies to one side (not because he doesn’t value them but because he uses them as references), they don’t make it into his exhibitions.

Here he shows two superb little studies made at Cill Raillig in 2006. As with Constable, his initial, to some extent preparatory, works have a quality of lively spontaneity that is exceptional. The one Basil Blackshaw included, Man Waiting, is also a small piece that is much more substantial than its modest scale might suggest.

IF YOU ARE a fan of painting, there's lots of good stuff in Boyle. Sahoko Blake shows a big, moody landscape, Winter, Croghan Hill, Co Offaly, in her intricately detailed style – a style that recalls Jacqueline Stanley with its underpinning of solid drawing.

James Allen continues his dialogue with the sea in two thoughtful, understated pieces. Clifford Collie is an Irish painter based in Spain. He produces richly atmospheric, smouldering, landscape-based studies. Maighread Tobin, perhaps better known as a sculptor, has been painting for some time to good effect, and her scoured, textural accounts of the Burren are good.

Graham Gingles shows a large painting rather than the boxes he is usually identified with. It’s a view of a forest, but not a straightforward one; it’s charged with ambiguity and mystery, as we might expect of Gingles. Diane Henshaw plays with chance and pattern in her likeable, colourful improvisations. Angela Hackett’s work is painterly in the best sense, as is that of Angie Grimes, Jonathan Hunter and Alison Pilkington.

Patricia Burns is a painter with a very distinctive vision, muted and unshowy but tremendously atmospheric in evoking place. For abstraction, Charles Tyrrell and Makiko Nakamura cannot be bettered, and KK Godsee is also noteworthy.

Among the printmakers, the meticulous realism of Jennifer Cunningham’s beautifully drawn work gives us insight into the emotional lives of the girls she depicts. There’s an allegorical quality to Cora Cummins’s evocations of islands and voyages, and textural subtlety in Louise Meade’s etchings. Jenny Spain, Lars Nyberg, James McCreary, Mary-Louise Martin and Yoshiharu Mishio also ensure that print is strongly represented.

Philip Moss is a Donegal-based painter whose big, bold, impeccably made realist works push simple ideas to extremes. His Now We Are Maturecontradicts its title with its brash, toy-like appeal.

Simon English shows particularly good works continuing his exploration of ideas of place, identity and alienation.

All of this is but an indication of what there is to see. Many other artists show outstanding pieces – David Crone, Marc Reilly, Geraldine O’Neill, Barbara Freeman, Jim Savage, Sinead Ni Mhaonaigh, Geraldine O’Reilly, Jack Donovan, Cara Thorpe, Jennifer Trouton and Pat McAllister included. More than enough to make the exhibition an important event in itself – not just a round-up of things already seen elsewhere, but a significant showcase for major new work. See it if you get the chance.

Boyle Arts Festival 20th Exhibition, King House, Boyle until July 21 071-9663885