The premature death last year of Ciaran Langford had a profound effect upon the many who knew him. A universally likeable person, his talents as a rather unconventional portrait painter were only just beginning to be established. This exhibition of 19 paintings acknowledges that talent.
Ciaran made frequent use of photographs as a source for his paintings. But, rather than merely duplicating these, he integrated the subject with his own interpretative use of colour and structure. He was influenced by modernists such as Cezanne, and this can be felt in the manner through which form and space are described through flat planes.
Such direct application of paint helps to account for works such as Portrait Of Hubert Van Den Dungen and Girl's Head. Walk fairly lifts off the wall thanks to its vibrant colouring. The Bridge highlighted Ciaran's interest in the possibility of communicating human emotions through the inflections of pose or gesture - with perhaps his own poignantly captured for posterity somewhere within the several self-portraits on show.
Continues until March 21st