An oversize, diffuse exhibition

An initial response to the Royal Hibernian Academy's annual exhibition is that there is an awful lot of it. It runs, according to the catalogue, to 454 items, even though many of these are small graphic pieces; it fills both floors of the Gallagher Gallery, including the smaller rooms off the main first-floor gallery, and laps down the back stairs.

Quite frankly, this seems A Bit Much. Though the Academy has cleaned up its act enormously in the past decade or so, an oversize, diffuse exhibition such as this is hardly the best strategy to guarantee overall quality.

Admittedly, the wide-ranging display of architectural models on the ground floor is more than welcome, since it adds both to the variety and innate interest of the event as a whole.

Nonetheless, I could not help feeling that the sheer space which the Academicians have at their disposal nowadays has gone to their heads a little; a slimming exercise would have paid dividends.

This applies particularly to many of the RHAs themselves, who are predominantly middlebrow and middle-grade and tend either towards conservatism or to a rather characterless eclecticism. The spacious first-floor gallery, in particular, seems full of their works, massed like batteries - but batteries, for the most part, firing dud shells.

When I say this I have the painters in mind rather than the sculptors, who are more varied and more interesting. The graphic work, too, is of a good standard this year, while the architectural models add an entire extra dimension.

Genuinely good paintings, however, are somewhat thin on the ground (or rather walls) and those which are good tend to be small. I miss badly the big, full-dress, "exhibition picture" which can stop viewers in their tracks or gather a small knot of people around it.

Established people of quality such as Stephen McKenna, Neil Shawcross, Nancy Wynne-Jones, Colin Harrison, Martin Gale, Mary Lohan, Elizabeth Taggart, Richard Gorman, Elizabeth Magill, Gwen O'Dowd, Barbara Rae, John Shinnors, Hilda van Stockum, Anne Donnelly, Mary Avril Gillan are all represented more or less adequately, but there is still not quite enough of them to tilt the balance overall.

Louis Le Brocquy and Tony O'Malley are scarcely more than token presences. The RHAs somehow seem to be everywhere, and this simply is not a good year for them - only John Kelly really shows up well or fully justifies his six exhibits, though Barbara Warren is never less than accomplished.

It is not a vintage year for portraits either, but Neil Shawcross's depiction of his fellow-artist Elizabeth Taggart is edgily commanding and even imperious.

Joe Dunne's Portrait of Sarah has personality both in the painterly and the human sense, and Tom McGuirk's Portrait of K.L.H. has a kind of rough-cast energy.

An interesting younger artist is Blaise Smith, who deservedly won a prize; his paintings are small, relatively straightforward in their realism, yet with an oddly personal dimension or mood to them.

The sculpture, without being actually outstanding, is generally solid and rewarding, and it also offers a fair quota of variety to hold your interest.

John Behan this year appears to have returned to his earlier compact, chunky style rather than adding to his recent, more open and more casual metal pieces.

Melanie Le Brocquy shows a highly impressive St Patrick (it dates from 1941, according to the catalogue), marred only by an inappropriately conventional head. Brian King, once again, is one of the very few abstract artists present (in any medium) to carry conviction.

The outsize Unfolding Universe of Remco de Fouw has a hard, head-on, metallic vitality and presence, while Joe Butler's two steel exhibits radiate a quirky individuality.

Melissa Diem's two idiosyncratic works in bronze and raku clay are eye-catching and original. And whatever category Killian Schurmann's glass creations are placed in, they are outstanding of their kind. If only there had not been so much of those Academicians . . .