Marie Hanlon

THIS exhibition virtually breaks into two parts: a series of small paintings on paper, entitled The Portal Series, and a larger number of abstract pictures on canvas or canvas and board. The first, as you might expect, is built around a kind of "door" motif which is sometimes clearly delineated, at other times merely scribbled or vaguely brushed in. These are painterly little pictures, though the colour is rather unadventurous.

The full scale paintings are built up around simple quasi geometric forms: some are divided evenly into four, while others are virtually diptychs. The motifs are of the plainest kind - mostly contrasted squares of colour, or two "wings" which are sometimes linked by a kind of "hinge" shape, rather in the style of Charles Tyrrell's recent work.

Tyrrell, in fact, seems to be a definite influence here in his ability to simplify without banality, and to achieve balance and tension simultaneously. But another, and perhaps more obvious, influence would seem to be Sean Scully, whose patterns of squares and rectangles in rather low, close but strong colour contrasts are suggested in several cases. The overall impression is of a budding individuality which has not yet fully found its own language.