At times elliptical, at times oblique

Reviewed:Merlin James, Kerlin Gallery until February 9th (01-6709093)Gavin O'Curry, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery until February 2nd (01-8740064)Ambit Drawings, Samuel Walsh, Rubicon Gallery until February 2nd (01- 6708055)

At first glance, there is a casual, almost whimsical quality to the paintings of Merlin James at the Kerlin Gallery, though it should be said that he would probably bridle at the description. The paintings are mostly small, representational images. That is, they generally have descriptive titles and the titles relate obviously to the images: Shoulder of Rock does depict a rock arch in the sea which, due to the way it is configured, bears a resemblance to a shoulder.

In many paintings, however, the nominal content is less immediately identifiable, for one of several reasons. On occasion James is very elliptical or oblique in terms of what he gives us of a representation. At times it seems that he is abstracting quite severely from a source to produce spare, formalised compositions. He is also notably elliptical with regard to his use of colour and tone. Both are employed with varying degrees of naturalism.

Then there is his idiosyncratic use of texture. His pictures are stubborn little objects, things conspicuously hand-made. There is nothing ingratiating, smooth or polished about them. Surface irregularities abound in the form of masses of blister-like lumps and ridges of painted-over pigment. On occasion there are holes cut in the canvas (holes that don't, oddly, disturb the overall pictorial cohesiveness). So far, so general. But how does all this relate to an individual work?

To say that James is concerned with space may sound like an inconsequential observation, but from work to work he is consistently and inventively concerned with space, in the sense of the interplay between real and depicted space, and of what space might be in a painting. In fact, time and again his subject is space, as in Corner Vertical, rather than the architectural boundaries to a space. This brings to mind Frank Stella's thesis, in a series of lectures published under the title Working Space, that the assertion of varying stages and kinds of imaginative space mark pivotal moments in the history of painting. For James, painting is always a space that affords room for manoeuvre.

A work such as his Torso (Front), which depicts a naked female torso, seems related, wittily, to questions of flatness and depth, representation and abstraction. Depicted on a flat surface, the image tends towards flatness, but also subverts it fairly obviously in terms of bodily protrusions and cavities. Then the directness of the representation militates against the image's formalisation, or our tendency to read it in formal terms - albeit without denying its formalised nature (which, in terms of colour, texture and other clues, is undisguised). As opposed to a Freud nude, which by comparison aspires to embody flesh in an unmediated way, James reminds us that a painting is a painting, not to emphasise its formal autonomy, but in a way that simultaneously asserts its capacity to deal with real things in the world.

His paintings are in part a considered, episodic engagement with painting itself, though not as an end in itself. That is to say, there is an acceptance in them that painting is the arena. You can test its limits, but ultimately a painting is a painting, whereas a great deal of contemporary painting comes at the medium from a different angle, from a viewpoint external to painting, using it in an ironic way and thus limiting its possibilities.

Besides being a painter, James is a noted writer on art, and he has argued for a real critical engagement with painting, with, that is, the actual complexities of the medium, as opposed to the kind of critical analysis that treats painting in terms of its hierarchical position in contemporary practice.

Gavin O'Curry, at the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, is one of a number of younger artists who make representational paintings of the contemporary, usually urban environment in a matter-of-fact, but slightly distanced, estranged way - the visual equivalent, perhaps, of Craig Raine's "Martian" poetry of some years ago. It is as though we are seeing details of the city without being aware of their meaning or significance. Everything is regarded with the same level of curiosity.

O'Curry's subjects range from tightly focused interior still lifes to expansive external settings. There is a miscellaneous but consistently engaging quality to the show. Where the work falls down is in its level of execution. He is clearly aiming for a neutral evenness of delivery, and to some extent he succeeds, but technically it is not quite there.

Samuel Walsh, at the Rubicon Gallery, shows a sequence of black-and-white charcoal Ambit Drawings. They fall into two groups. In one the charcoal is built up into dense mats of powdery grey and black, in the other heavy black outlines are laid down on pale grounds. The atmospheric tonality may derive from the experience of a residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in the wilds of North Mayo. The template for an Ambit drawing is the closely argued demarcation of a motif against a ground.

This motif is typically formalised into a central mass bounded by an arrangement of angles and spikes making up bristling, defensive forms. In most of the work,there is a great deal of local incident, lots of ins and outs. Again, it is tempting to interpret this as relating to the fractal-like coastline that results from the Atlantic battering the ancient rock of Mayo.