Reviewed

Sonja Landweer's recent work is at the Peppercanister Gallery until May 31st (016611279)

Inscapes, Shona Leitch's ceramics and Niamh McGrath's paintings, is at The Bridge Gallery until June 5th (01-8729702)

Recent Histories is at the National Photographic Archive until May 25th (6030371)

The Tide by Garrett Cormican is at The Grafton Gallery (01-6778577)

When Dutch-born Sonja Landweer came to Ireland in 1965 (at the invitation of the fledgling Kilkenny Design Workshops) she had already established her reputation as a ceramicist. She made elegant, wheel-thrown, vessel-shaped pieces, and the typical Landweer form blossomed from an incredibly slim base. Though clearly employing a functionally inspired shape, these vessels were aesthetic rather than functional objects. This is not by way of introducing another instalment of the art-versus-craft debate, a debate which, like the abstract-versus-representational debate, is usually beside the point.

It is more a preamble to noting that, in much of the work in her exhibition at the Peppercanister Gallery, Landweer is, albeit differently and very well, doing pretty much the same thing: making ceramics based on vessel forms. Except that this recent work is more overtly sculptural and comes across as being, figuratively as well as literally, darker. Literally so because the forms are heavier and denser, and she has made extensive use of an extraordinary black finish, contrasting it with the occasional use of gold. One set of pieces is not vessel-shaped at all. These Relationships are multi-element arrangements, made up of clusters of columnar, phallic forms.

These forms may refer to people, though they could as easily relate to any homogeneous grouping of animals, plants or even stones. The relationships, in any case, are close, concentrated but not exactly harmonious. In some respects these works are reminiscent of Eithne Jordan's Beauty and the Beast paintings, in which the figure of a woman is the focus for a range of enveloping, suffocating pressures on the part of those around her. Similarly, Landweer sites single, golden individuals in the midst of surrounding, perhaps supportive, perhaps threatening, presences.

Shona Leitch's ceramics, at the Bridge Gallery, are boldly stated and well-judged. A series of uncoloured vessels departs from a straightforwardly circular, symmetrical format with curvaceous flourishes. One effect is to initiate a dialogue between enclosed and open forms, volumes and planes.

Another set of work, a series of striking blue pieces, finished with a blue underglaze and partly textured with an ingenious variation of slipcasting, are more voluminous and enclosed, and perhaps more satisfactory as sculptural objects, but all of her work is very accomplished.

Leitch's blue ceramics are complemented by Niamh McGrath's almost all-blue paintings. In one sense a series of seascapes, with their use of the distant horizon line as a compositional division, they could also be abstract in that they make no particular representational claims. But they certainly evoke the spirit of looking at the sea, in opening up contemplative vistas that invite leisurely exploration.

McGrath introduces what might be called jump-cuts into this format, juxtaposing similar though slightly different images, a device that works quite well. They are modestly restrained, quietly likeable paintings.

Recent Histories is a portrait-based photographic exhibition in the National Photographic Archive.

It features the work of three photographers, plus some archive material. The weakest aspect of the show is the piecemeal inclusion of this archive material, the strongest is a series of studies of women from the Travelling community by Pete Smyth. These are beautiful, close-up, large, black-and-white images, and they find a reciprocal openness and warmth in their subjects. They also strikingly embody the show's premise, which is that faces are history. Each of these faces is a complex and compelling story, eloquently told.

Michael Durand's street portraits are likeably casual studies, and David Monahan's work sets out to record the cheerful ebullience of primary-school children. Both sets of work are competent without being particularly gripping or exceptional. In an unforced way, the photographs are interspersed with statistics that underline the persistence of social patterns and divisions in Irish society.

Garrett Cormican's paintings, in his show The Tide, at The Grafton Gallery, are, broadly speaking, a mixture of observational landscape studies and impassioned broadsides. They also display a dramatic degree of variation in their level of execution. A series of studies of shallow water are solidly made and carefully observed. His more expressionist excursions can be heavy-handed and crudely illustrative, ratcheting up the drama at the expense of everything else. This is partly a matter of taste, of course.

It depends what pitch of emotional delivery you prefer. But when compassion shades into histrionics it tends to become counter-productive. If some of the pictures were songs they would be sung by Celine Dion, whereas one imagines he's aiming more for Bob Dylan. Yet it must be said that there is more than enough in the show to suggest that he has a real flair for painting.