Norway unplugged

Reviewed:

Unplugged, paintings and totems by Espen Eiborg, Cross Gallery, 59 Francis Street, until May 27th

Landshapes, paintings by Meriel Nicoll and Roisin McGuigan, Paul Kane Gallery, until May 20th

Paper Garden, prints by Cliona Doyle, Original Print Gallery until May 18th

Mark Rothko's final paintings are stark, black-and-white or grey-and-grey affairs in which he distils pictorial structure into two contrasting tonal bands, demarcated by what looks like an horizon line. Of course the paintings are abstract, but it is difficult not to think of them as stylised landscapes or seascapes.

That, in a way, is the point where Norwegian artist Espen Eiborg begins. In his robust paintings, shown alongside totem poles in his exhibition unplugged at the Cross Gallery, he favours that single, defining horizontal as a compositional device. But even if we ignore the terse, unsentimental references to physical geography that often feature as titles - Tilth, Ore, Grike, Feldspar - the works themselves would leave us in little doubt. Their rugged, weathered surfaces are positively redolent of the earth.

Eisborg's CV seems to run against the grain of any notion that they might be portraits of particular places. Norway is mountainous, but his emblematic landscape is plain, bleak and devoid of any sign of human intervention or habitation.

Yet his background is not rural. He comes from Oslo, and has more recently lived in New York City. How much more urban can you get? But he has since late last year been based in rural Co Meath and perhaps something of the local landscape has filtered onto the canvas. Odds are, though, that his paintings are more landscapes of the mind, not in the sense that they are imaginary natural landscapes but in that they are closer to Rothko's abstractions.

They are also very physical things, very much the sum of the encounters between artist and materials. The struggle between two areas of a typical image, between earth and sky, light and dark, or positive and negative, echoes the battle the artist has with each material, including the rough hessian that is often collaged onto the smoother canvas ground.

The textural emphasis, the underlying darkness and severity, and the restricted use of colour in favour of tonal qualities place this work in the north European tradition, an admittedly notional tradition encompassing not only Rothko but also, more recently, Per Kirkeby and Anselm Kiefer. The totems, rough-hewn forms of scorched, blackened wood, augment the mood of the paintings and are striking in themselves. In all, Eiborg's work is ambitious and strong, at its best when the scale is large and the format straightforward.

Landshapes at Paul Kane pairs two landscape painters. Meriel Nicoll's colour compositions are meditative responses to place. Concentrating on one or two motifs in each case, she allows a dominant colour to suffuse the image and set the tone, a procedure which is modestly effective, if a little undemanding all round. One of the bigger pieces, the restrained Estuary, with a simple sky-sea format, is particularly effective, and Winter Sky is also interesting for its subtle tonal play.

Roisin McGuigan offers more structured responses to her Wicklow sources. A series of bold, gestural compositions, made with great verve, displays a very sound use of toned-down colour. There is a perceptible shift in emphasis from the more methodically arranged, relatively orderly Night Gardens to noticeably freer treatments of comparable material. It is as if the work registers the compatible influence of Richard Diebenkorn and Willem de Kooning, respectively, on a sliding scale. This is not to label McGuigan's paintings as "derivative". What is appealing about them is that they are intelligently made paintings, alert to their art historical context without abandoning a willingness to trust instinct.

Botanical illustration has never lacked professional or public admirers, and in recent years appreciation of its virtues has widened considerably. The Scottish artist Elizabeth Blackadder is justly renowned for her plant paintings, drawings and prints which combine botanical accuracy with expressive freedom.

Cliona Doyle, in her work, assumes exactly the same freedoms and responsibilities. Her beautifully made prints in Paper Garden at the Original Print Gallery are meticulously faithful to their subjects without any compromise of artistic intent.

Broadly speaking, two approaches are represented, exemplified in the stunning, richly textured diptych Lemon Tree, a tour de force, and the smaller, finer, and more delicate Hydrangea and its companions.

Their delicate precision recalls the lightness of fresco painting, but also, it seems to me, Chinese and Japanese painting, which has a similar calm, unforced identification with nature. This is a gem of an exhibition that deserves close attention.