AIDAN DUNNE VISUAL ARTS:THERE ARE MANY good artists in Revelation, a group show at the National Gallery, but not a lot of good art. The problem isn't hard to find: it's quality control. While the 29 participants were invited to respond to a promising theme, too many of the responses are oddly muted and laboured.
The project had its inception in an approach from the Graphic Studio Dublin to the National Gallery in 2005. Printmaker Jean Beardon proposed an exhibition on the theme of Annunciation. A less culturally and religiously prescriptive theme was deemed more suitable, hence Revelation, which might apply in various religious or entirely secular contexts.
So explains Anne Hodge in the substantial publication that accompanies the show. In the event, she observes of the switch of titles that a large number of artists looked directly to the Judeo-Christian tradition "and to the Book of Revelation, in particular, for inspiration". Also writing in the catalogue, Mark Patrick Hederman takes an admirably broad view of the theme, pointing out how crucial the notion of divinely revealed truth is to most of the world's religions and, he argues, most of the world's population, bar the estimated 2½ per cent of unbelievers. But what of Buddhists, who go more for enlightenment than revelation? Perhaps Enlightenment would have been a more stimulating and open theme and title, for, having broadened out the discussion, Hederman reins it in again and corrals it within the confines of a creationist world-view.
It's a pity his essay wasn't read by the participating artists before they set to work, for it might have enlivened the artistic debate. As it happens, Jean Beardon's is one of the most noteworthy pieces included and she, quite rightly, stuck to her original idea: her work is called Annunciation Lilies. It's a densely worked, elaborately decorative floral study and a thing of great beauty, not least because of her skilful use of pattern, texture - and gold leaf. There's a concentrated, celebratory richness to it that is rare elsewhere in the exhibition.
Madonna lilies recur, notably in a sensitively observed etching by Cliona Doyle called Lilies and Butterflies. She cites a remarkable panel painting by Nathaniel Hone, which is on display as part of the exhibition, as her source and inspiration. Nature, she comments, has forever been a revelation to artists. Hone's painting is exceptional in his oeuvre, and it's informal, sketchy and absolutely brimming with vitality. Donald Teskey notes that the sheer extent of Hone's coastal landscapes was a revelation to him, and he relished seeing them in their storage quarters. His own monochrome coastal study is a solid piece of work, every part of its surface intensely animated.
Other artists do what they normally do, and do it well. They include William Crozier, Pamela Leonard and Martin Gale, whose narrative twist to the theme is really effective (he depicts a circus tent coming into view beyond a screen of trees). Maeve McCarthy steps outside her usual mode to make a subtle, textural aquatint.
Other works come across as being only half there or, conversely, fussily pedantic, featuring promising ideas that haven't quite come together or obvious ideas that are delivered with a heavy hand.
COINCIDENTALLY, CLIONA DOYLE'S solo show, Il Giardino, is currently on view at the Graphic Studio Gallery. The garden referred to is that of Il Certosa di Pontignamo, a 14th-century monastery just outside Siena which overlooks formal walled gardens. Doyle has long been drawn to botanical subjects, and the monastery garden provided her with a wealth of material and a setting in which to work (a press release notes that the work was made "on location"). Her works range in scale from small studies of details to huge, two-plate renderings of fruit trees.
In the smaller pieces she combines full-colour images of fruit with linear, monochrome descriptions of foliage and stems, providing us with selective pictorial illusions. They are persuasive, measured works, but it is in the larger tree studies that she really comes into her own. Ambitiously conceived, they are made with tremendous verve and boldness, and manage the difficult trick of being gesturally spontaneous and convincingly true to their subjects. Taken as a group, these big carborundum prints amount to a terrific achievement.
AT THE RUBICON GALLERY, Andrew Bick's recent works are inventive reworkings of older works, hence the recurrence of the word "again" in the titles. They derive in various ways from a series of watercolours on cut paper made at Cill Rialaig in Co Kerry in 2006. These original pieces have been subjected to a series of arbitrary changes and interventions, so that they serve as starting points and directly contribute to subsequent generations of work. What we are looking at in this show are, in effect, descendants of those initial watercolours, produced by means of interactions with the artist and the wider environment.
It sounds like a process weighted towards conceptualism, and to some extent it is, as though Bick aspires to generate work that pulls itself into existence by its own bootstraps, bypassing the standard conventions of artistic creation. Physically, we see mixed-media paintings that read as lively improvisations built on implied underlying geometric grids. Triangles and, to a lesser extent, circles, are the dominant geometric motifs.
The materials used include oil and watercolour paint, marker pens and wax, and while Bick's procedures may be arbitrary in certain respects - in his deciding, for example, to project an image of a prior work and then work within the resultant outlines - one feels that he doesn't simply wait to see what results, because he manages to engineer beautifully layered surfaces and visually intriguing interactions between forms and colours. You really have to see the paintings in the flesh to appreciate the effects he achieves. They include recessive planes suspended in misty, amorphous grounds and complex, interwoven meshes. It is cool, offhand work, but it's also playfully inventive.
Revelation , 29 graphic artists, is at the Print Gallery, National Gallery of Ireland, until Sept 28 (Mon-Sat 9.30am-5.30pm, Thurs 9.30am-8.30pm, Sun 12noon-5.30pm);Il Giardino , Cliona Doyle, is at the Graphic Studio Gallery, Through the Arch, Cope Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, until Apr 30 (Mon-Fri 10am-5.30pm, Sat 11am-5pm);Andrew Bick, New Works is at the Rubicon Gallery, 10 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, until May 5 (Tue-Sat 12noon-6pm)
