FROM the visual viewpoint, Eigse Carlow is extremely compressed: the chief exhibitions are all contained in a single building, while the supplementary shows are also close at hand. This year, once again, the venue chosen is St Patrick's College obviously not a long term prospect, but preferable to previous ones.
In fact, if Carlow does get an arts centre of its own - which is now a much discussed issue it is highly possible that it would have a smaller rather than a greater viewing space to offer, though presumably a more specific one. Such centres, in fact, are not always or inevitably the answer, and there is the inherent danger of resident art bureaucracy distancing itself from local support and participation.
Of this year's five "featured artists" I thought the strongest among some sharply contrasted personalities was John Shinnors - which would seem to be a fairly general feeling. Shinnors is one of those painters whose idiom is often indirect, almost elliptical, yet speaks to quite ordinary viewers seemingly without effort. His titles can be taken as slightly teasing and riddling, though it seems to me that they are really signposts to lead the viewer into the core of the picture by staying the original image or impression which triggered it off.
Shinnors "abstracts", but is not an abstract painter; the subject remains as at least a point of reference. His Friesian cattle, kites and scarecrows are absorbed into a rather shadowy, distanced field of colour and form dominated by images rather than specific things. (An exception might be made of the Russian ship moored - presumably in the Shannon estuary, a painting which approaches realism but retains a sense of mystery.) As an artist he has been rather a late starter, or rather late developer, but it seems to me that he is now one of the genuine originals of contemporary Irish art.
The pastels of David Blackburn, many of them based on or influenced by years spent in Australia, show a virtuoso handling of their medium and a very individual colour sense. Though they often have a basis in landscape, they aye virtually abstract and stress a delicate linear sense, as fine as filigree, which cuts across and counterpoints the almost tropical glow of the colour. In some of the larger, multiple pieces I had an uneasy sense of formulae and sheer technique taking over from content; but throughout there is a rare mix of elegance and sensuous appeal.
Janet Mullarney has been seen to rather better effect elsewhere, though My Mind is Frazzled, with its life size wooden nude figure, is one of her strongest pieces and one which made an immediate impression. The sculpture of James Ritchie or an odd combination of abstract form and hieroglyphs, interesting but, to my taste, a little cold. Daphne Wright, another sculptor. I would like to see more of, while the large watercolours of Laila Balode, a Latvian artist, have a kaleidoscopic range of effects and a free, slightly hallucinatory use of colour. Emotional depth, however, is rather lacking in this display of lyrical panache, and perhaps is not intended anyway.
THE "emerging artist", is Mary Avril Gillan, whose Journey Out is a series of paintings on two by five feet panels, obviously born out of a single experience or impression. They have a dark versus light basis which in places approaches chiaroscuro, while the imagery suggests some industrial landscape seen in a blur of rapidity, as if from a speeding train or a plane just taking off. There is a linking note of genuine emotional power here, and her career will be watched.
The usual group exhibition of invited artists features Eithne Carr, Anne Donnelly, James Hanley (currently showing at the Hallward), Leo McCann, Michael G. Payne, Donald Teskey and Tom Wood. McCann, a Belfast born painter, is an interesting and (to me anyway) unfamiliar talent, while Tom Wood, who appears to be English based paints faintly surreal houses in an offbeat, rather dreamy mood. Anne Donnelly, with her mannered, airy, fey style and rather chalky paint surface, is perhaps the most original of the Irish exhibitors.
Mention should also be made of Maurice Moynihan's photographic Irish artists, which includes excellent likenesses of Patrick Collins, Camille Souter Brian Bourke Sean McSweeney and others. The open selection show includes artists such as Mike Fitzharris and Grainne Dowling, and there is also the usual group exhibition by local artists. Outside the college itself, the Pembroke Studio/Gallery mounts drawings, paintings and sculpture by Bev Carbery, Thomas Kelly and Marion Donnell.
