VISUAL ART/Aidan Dunne: Reviewed: Time in Between, Eoghan McTigue, Project until June 6th (1850- 260027) Stray Light, Andrew Folan, Ashford Gallery Arts Centre until May 9th (01-6617286) The Wake House Series, Henry Morgan, Cross Gallery until May 4th (01-4738978) Martin Mooney, Paintings, Solomon Gallery until May 15th (01-6794237)
Time in Between, the title of Eoghan McTigue's exhibition at Project, refers to the intermediate state of the notice boards he photographs. They are, at least momentarily, blank, but on closer inspection bristling with indications of their usual function. These clues take the form of myriad staples and pins, many trailing scraps of the notices they once held in place. The resultant images, printed on a large, perhaps life scale, are visually subtle and resonant with meaning.On the one hand they resemble colour field paintings and are hence, viewed in the high Modernist sense of the critic Clement Greenberg, about excluding the world in favour of autonomous formalism. On the other, they infiltrate the world into this paradigm of abstraction by referring obliquely to a hectic traffic of communication, to events past and pending, unmistakably locating them in the world of human affairs with all its clutter and confusion. In effect, they synthesise two notionally exclusive approaches and are visually and conceptually satisfying and not unlike some of the work of the German photographer Andreas Gursky.
Andrew Folan, whose exhibition Stray Light is showing at the Ashford, is a versatile, technically brilliant artist who has produced some exceptionally good work, usually, though not exclusively, in the form of images. That is, while he has a talent for devising powerful, conceptually rich images, he has also made three-dimensional "prints" - effectively sculptures - that are outstanding and intriguing. Yet somehow the accumulation of his strengths have not quite, as yet, combined to consolidate his reputation at the level it arguably merits. There are several possible reasons for this. One is his print-making background. Even though the boundaries between visual art forms have largely dissolved, as nominal "sculptors" devote themselves to making videos or digital prints, and vice versa, print still carries with it the aura of craft, of a concern verging on obsession with technique. And it has to be said technique, verging on the point of obsession, is indeed central to Folan's work. Perhaps its very polish in this regard militates against it being taken on its own merits.
A great deal of thought, instinct, labour and ingenuity go into what he does, but there is little sign of effort in the finished pieces themselves, and perhaps we like to see more conspicuous signs of effort.
Stray Light, largely based on the manipulation of photographic imagery, often at second-hand, is probably as good a place as any to make your own assessment of his work. That is to say it is typical in terms of its high production values, versatility and diversity, and imbued with a characteristic coolness and detachment.
The show coincides with the publication of a generously illustrated Gandon Profile on his work, which includes an essay by Paul O'Brien and an interview with Patrick T. Murphy (Gandon, €10).
The Wake House Series is Henry Morgan's first solo show in a long time. While the title is clear enough, the pictures distil the subject down to one repetitious pictorial format dominated by one central oblong, a door into the dark, or a window onto the dark. We are on a threshold, and the paintings, with their soft blocks of colour, could be viewed as a Rothko-like series of meditations on life and death and how we regard them.
At first glance you might think the format is too repetitious, but Morgan is always fully engaged, and his work is consistently engaging.
If there is a problem it is not repetition per se, but that there are too many paintings in the show, and the one that occupies the end wall of the final room - a pivotal position - is far from the strongest. We are presented with a number of beyonds: ominously or serenely dark, glowingly bright, sensuously rich, a central absence or a transcendental presence. It takes a lot of effort to hold this form in place, at the centre of the artist's attention. In pictorial terms it is reinforced by a framework of linear scaffolding.
Applying Jacques Derrida's argument about painting, this supplementary apparatus is indicative of an internal lack, and that possible lack is Morgan's subject.
Martin Mooney is a superlative exponent of the well made picture in the tradition of 19th- century realism. He applies a wealth of expertise in oil painting technique to the production of landscapes and still lifes, and he does so straightforwardly, without nostalgia or pastiche.
That said, he does have elements of a signature style that depart somewhat from strict painterly realism. In his still life, particularly, he seems to be fascinated by the interplay between the factual flatness of the surface and the illusionistic possibilities of depicting depth.
His luxuriant, virtuoso still life studies often feature low viewpoints, and what might be described as confrontational positioning, with uncompromising planes of colour. He evidently enjoys setting himself technical problems, manipulating lighting with gusto. These preoccupations are also evident in his paintings of Dublin from the Liffey. He is at his most relaxed in an extremely good series of small Irish landscape studies, made in Connemara and Donegal (where he lives), that some respects recall the work of the late Derek Hill.
