Art lessons

It was a very good year for one-person exhibitions. In fact, the general pace and standard were exceptional. All of the following were memorable: Eithne Jordan's French landscapes at the Rubicon, Mary Lohan's dense, concentrated, landscapes at the Taylor, Maria Simonds-Gooding's spare plaster reliefs at the same gallery, Barrie Cooke's New Zealand landscapes at the Kerlin, Di- ana Copperwhite's audacious abstracts at the Rubicon, where Nick Miller's intense studies of family and studio also featured. That's just for starters. There were also Bernadette Kiely's shoreline paintings at the Taylor, Zebedee Jones's monochrome abstracts at Green on Red, Brian Maguire's Hubert Butler tribute show at the Butler, Helen Richmond's evocations of the parched outback at the Hallward and David Tress and June Redfern, both of whom showed as part of Eigse Carlow. Sean McSweeney had an especially fine wintery show at Taylor, and the Graphic Studio Gallery scored with a joint show of prints by Tony and Jane O'Malley.

And there were Oliver Comerford's glimpses of a world passing by at the Hallward, Jill Dennis's meticulously observed views of water at the Taylor, not to mention Janet Pierce's lush, romantic watercolour skies there as well. Michael Coleman produced exemplary abstracts at Green on Red, Oliver Whelan probed the nature of the painted image at Temple Bar, and William Crozier excelled himself in black-and-white at the Taylor.

Stephen Cullen was a nice surprise, an unabashed colourist at the Hallward. Paul Seawright's photographs were at the Kerlin and Marcella Reardon's mixed media pieces were one of the outstanding Jo Rain shows. David Godbold and Micheal Farrell deserve credit for broaching the 1798 bicentenary in their very different exhibitions. Noel Sheridan made a memorable appearance as part of the Project's performance week.

Sculpture shows which stand out are Janet Mullarney's Domestic Gods (currently showing at the Hugh Lane Gallery), John Kindness's The Museum of the Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, also at the Hugh Lane, Maud Cotter's particularly strong exhibition at the Rubicon early in the year, Michael Quane's virtuoso stone carving at Temple Bar, John Gibbons's evocative, and ominous steel pieces also at Temple Bar, Keith Edmeir's eerily autobiographical work at the Douglas Hyde, Gabby Dowling's beautifully-made leather masks as psychological allegories at the Hallward, Olivia Musgrave's light-hearted, elegant take on classical subjects at Jorgensen Fine Art, Tom Fitzgerald at the Butler Gallery and more recently the Rubicon.

The effect of Peter Shelton's fine godspipes at IMMA was dissipated by the way the show was thinly dispersed throughout a whole wing of the building. Larger projects of note included Hughie O'Donoghue's authoritative paintings of the human figure at IMMA (continuing into next year), which also featured the William Scott retrospective of paintings and drawings and the Derek Hill retrospective which showcased his outstanding naturalistic work in landscape and portraiture. Also strong were Paul Mosse's and Ronnie Hughes's survey shows at the Model Arts Centre, the big Willie Doherty survey show at the Liverpool Tate, and Elizabeth Cope's vivid pictorial diary of visits to pre-hurricane Honduras and Guatemala (currently showing at Kilkenny's Butler Gallery).

The pick of the group shows included Art Unsolved: The Musgrave Kinley Outsider Collec- tion at IMMA, a likeable, lively Academy Without Walls at the Gallagher, and Short Circuit, a multi-faceted touring show by the Backwater Artists' Group, was innovative and successful. For the 25th anniversary of Kilkenny Arts Week, the Butler marshalled artists who had exhibited there during arts weeks past, to great effect. Excellent Dynamite in Foley Street was a welcome initiative, a challenging artist-curated group show. British Art of the 1950s at the RHA Gallagher featured some fine work. Mexican Devotions, an enjoyable display of popular Mexican religious art, and the National Gallery's Art into Art: A Living Response to Past Mas- ters, were both quite out of the ordinary.

Public art has been much in the foreground, not only in the monumental sense, but also in terms of temporary artworks sited in public places. The idea has become increasingly popular over the last few years. This year's EVA, for example, was spread throughout the city. It was excellent in many respects, but it seemed over-extended logistically, as did the Claremorris Open, which made the town its gallery. The precision placement of the works that made up the smaller scale Resonate in Belfast illustrated the problem. With few exceptions, every piece in a publicly-sited show needs an exceptional level of planning, a fact illustrated by the postponement of Dorothy Cross's Nissan Art Project winning Ghost Ship, now scheduled for February next year.

Public art is a growth area. The Hugh Lane Gallery welcomed the donation of Francis Bacon's studio, which will eventually go on permanent exhibition, though the theme park implications of exhibiting a studio did arouse some debate. Jobst Graeve, a talented curator, departed from Sligo's Model Arts Centre, which has finally closed for an extensive overhaul. Meanwhile another talented curator, Patrick Murphy, returned from the US to take up the job of director of the RHA Gallagher Gallery.

Highlight: Bill Viola's Nantes Triptych, shown as part of the Belfast Festival, is not a new work, but it is a brilliant showcase for the potential of video as a medium, and it also serves as a benchmark for younger artists who want to work in the area.

Lowlight: It's in the nature of Aosdana that not everyone who applies for membership is going to get in but, that said, it does reflect badly on the organisation that an artist of the stature of Willie Doherty shouldn't have made it. This year alone he had the unique accolade for an Irish artist of a major retrospective at the Liverpool Tate Gallery - a show in which he acquitted himself very well. He probably has the highest international profile of any Irish artist of his generation. Even if you don't warm to his work, there's no arguing with his achievement.