Visual Arts:One, though by no means the only, good thing about Surface Tensionat Broadstone XL is curator Catherine Bowe's decision to include the work of ceramic artist Jane Jermyn in the three-person show (the others being Gerda Teljeur and Juliana Walters).
Nothing remarkable about that, you might think, but in many respects there is still a lingering unease about the conjunction of conventional fine art and craft forms. Ceramic is generally assigned to the craft side of a mental divide. As it happens, Surface Tensionis eclectic through and through. There is no obvious commonality between the three artists, yet they complement each other perfectly.
Jermyn makes beautifully judged organic forms categorised under two headings, Pods and Standing. They resemble, without illustrating, various plant shapes and textures, though they are also related to non-organic processes that generate the intricate patterns of the natural world. So her work spans the geological and the organic in its range of reference, without being a depiction of any single aspect of that continuum. There is something elemental and fundamental about her pieces, though, a feeling of rightness and inevitability. She is exceptionally attentive to nuances of tone, colour and texture as well as shape, and seems to have an unerring instinct for sculptural form.
At Broadstone, the show includes only Pod forms by her, though Standing forms are also illustrated in the accompanying handsome publication. In the context of the show, it's worth noting that her Pods enclose spaces in a gentle, caressing way, imbuing them with a sense of generative potential. It is this implicit, invisible aspect of her work that provides the strongest link with Teljeur's magical, intricate drawings. Made on a huge scale, they are composed of dense networks of line that make up floating tonal clouds, modulating subtly from light to dark and suggesting vast webs of interconnectivity.
It is a leap, but a definite and logical one, from the charged inner spaces of Jermyn's Pods to Teljeur's diffuse clouds, which metaphorically evoke phenomena as disparate as flocks of starlings and the vast gaseous regions of outer space that give birth to stars and planets. Weaving is perhaps the basis of Teljeur's method, which is resolutely algorithmic, generating endless complexities on the basis of a simple additive process. There is a linear connection between Teljeur's and Juliana Walters's work, not least in a ladder fashioned from dressmaker's elastic that ascends high to the ceiling like the prodigious plant in Jack and the Beanstalk.
In fact, Walters refers directly to fairy tale in her video, Spaltung, its title a psychoanalytical term for the splitting of the self. That is exactly what her work dramatises, as her female protagonist, garbed in red and resembling a cross between Little Red Riding Hood and Alice in Wonderland, multiplies herself over and over as she repeatedly pulls an elastic away along a forestry trail. Every time it snaps back, the image duplicates itself so that we end up with a grid of mirror images of the same scene re-enacted again and again.
It's ambiguous but distinctly creepy, drawing on the darker aspects of fairy tales, and at least on one level alluding to the impossibility of escape from the self.
Surface Tensionwas selected by the Arts Council for its Touring Experiment, which means that the show, which originated in the Wexford Arts Centre, will tour several venues throughout the country. It's a good choice, and well worth making the effort to see in its impressively spacious (though, admittedly, what could be termed off-Broadway) Dublin venue.
Launch,at the Lab in Foley Street, showcases work by recent fine art graduates. Three artists feature, but they are augmented by a screening room showing video projections by nine others. Sheena Barrett and Lee Welch selected Launchand Mark Garry the Projectorstrand - except that two of the three in Launchalso use video, one exclusively, so that the event is dominated by the moving image. Clearly, this indicates a tactical choice on the part of the selectors, but it also reflects the sheer quantity of such work being made at undergraduate level, and all of the included artists show pieces that merit attention.
If you happened to see last year's graduate shows, Projectorwill jog your memory, and that's partly what it's about. By their nature, graduate shows feature dense concentrations of work, so most of it disappears without trace, which is a shame given the level of effort and the standards achieved in recent times. Launchis a welcome initiative offering wider exposure, and it's also a sign that the art scene has gradually become more responsive to graduate-level work.
The term "video" includes elements of performance, which looms large in a great deal of what's on view. This is not surprising given that Garry points to an interest in self-analysis in the pieces he chose. You could expand that statement to read self and identity in various ways, with Michelle Connelly as a prime example. Sophie Linehan's offbeat, brilliantly conceived and executed sculptural performance works would be outstanding in any context, and there is a high level of realisation to several other pieces as well, including those by Fiona Fullam and Helena O'Connor.
Of the three Launchexhibitors, Tracy Hanna ingeniously blends real and virtual worlds in pieces that combine appropriated and newly made elements. Seamus Donovan's crisp graphics, still and moving, are accomplished if conceptually inconclusive.
In the midst of all the video, it's almost odd to encounter a painter, but Kevin Cosgrove has attracted a serious amount of attention since his graduation show. In a vein of suitably laconic realism, he explores a masculine world view, but not, as you might expect, in a disparaging way. He has no interest in the culture of machismo as such. Rather, he presents oblique views of aspects of life that were traditionally masculine preserves, capturing the allure of boyish adventure and the imaginative appeal of mechanics and making things. It's a realm that encompasses the factory floor and the boat shed, the mundane and the exciting, and he approaches it with great narrative instinct.
Surface Tension: Jane Jermyn, Gerda Teljeur and Juliana Walters, Broadstone XL, Broadstone Studios, Hendron Building, 36-40 Upper Dominick Street, Wed-Sat, 12 noon-5pm, until Jan 12;Launch , work by recent graduates Seamus Donovan, Tracy Hanna and Kevin Cosgrove, plus Launch Projector, featuring moving image works by recent graduates, the Lab, Foley Street, Mon-Sat, 10am-5pm, until Jan 20
