Art

The week’s best art exhibitions: From Suan Mannion to Gabhann Dunne

Elaine Grainger in Dublin, Dorje de Burgh in Bray, and Greenlane’s Christmas Show

Elaine Grainger: Detail from Barely There

Aidan Dunne's face
Aidan Dunne
Sat Dec 7 2019 - 05:00

Fading into Another Dusk: Water Memory – Susan Mannion
Roscommon Arts Centre. Until January 31st

Susan Mannion, Water Memory (detail)

Boyle resident Susan Mannion’s enamel composite work comprises some 70 copper panels, creating a watery otherworld within the gallery. It stems from her winning the Roscommon Visual Artists Forum Award, and she draws on “the mythology of water sources in Ireland, the alchemy of copper enamelling and her love of wild swimming.”

The Gap Between Noise: Elaine Grainger
The Complex Gallery, Dublin. Until December 14thThe first solo show at The Complex's reconfigured warehouse space is a site-specific installation by Elaine Grainger that responds to the nature of the space. The visitor is invited to negotiate a series of assembled pieces comprising ready-made materials and appropriated objects, playing on tensions between the fixed and the temporary, stasis and change.

Dream the End: Dorje de Burgh
Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Co Wicklow. Until February 1st

READ MORE

Dorje de Burgh, from Dream the End

Dorje de Burgh’s work, introduced as part of the PhotoIreland Festival earlier this year, has the effect of extending the narrative scope of photographic images, combining external detail with the inner, subjective workings of memory and speculation. It is, de Burgh explains, “also a telling of my mother’s story, the story of our relationship, its intensity and its end”.

When the Wolves Own the Island: Gabhann Dunne
Molesworth Gallery, Dublin. Until December 23rd

Gabhann Dunne, Wren and Wolf, oil on gesso panel

Gabhann Dunne’s recent paintings imagine a rewilded Ireland through the medieval frame of St Patrick’s Purgatory in Lough Derg, then regarded as the gateway to purgatory.

Christmas Show 2019
The Greenlane Gallery, Dingle, Co Kerry. Until January 12th

Hugh Thompson, Fenit, Co Kerry

Featuring the regular, extensive stable of gallery artists and introducing a new gallery artist, Hugh Thompson. Regulars include Margo Banks, Gary Devon, Elizabeth O’Kane, Niall Naessens, Patsy Farr, Arthur Maderson, Michael Flaherty, Áine Ní Chíobháin and more. (With a festive evening on December 21st.)