THE RHA Gallagher Gallery is a spacious building, but this year the NCAD Fine Art degree exhibition not only occupies the ground and first floors, it has spilled into the basement as well. This innovation was necessary in order to house several of the large conceptual and installation pieces which could not be accommodated inside the usual, space limits.
Some of these are accompanied by very noisy soundtracks, which tend to stupefy rather than stimulate the viewer. Certain of them, too, are over ambitious and over elaborate; the parts are often more interesting than the whole. However, I was impressed by the macabre, slightly surreal pieces by Fergal Grogan and by Fiona McDonald's intricate creations of wire and vessels of coloured water, which are imaginative and off the beaten track.
In the painting and graphic art, Patricia Robertson's strong draughsmanship and almost Expressionist style give her pictures a good deal of impact. Olivia Reid's large abstract pieces on paper are not very original in vocabulary, but they do have energy and real presence.
Adrian Ward's quasi geometric paintings may owe a hint or two to Sean Scully, but are quieter and more austere, and I was impressed, too, by the darkly glowing pictures of Nuala Dalzell, the "cool" style of Peter Graham, Roisin Lewis's eloquently scribbly, slighty Twombly like works, and the imagistic paintings of Elaine Green.
Liza Kelly's prints are witty and economic, while those of Paul Robert Brooks are precisely the opposite - large, colourful and rather flamboyant. Piia Rossi's small, detailed, jewel like works are real curios, with something of the quality of icons and stamped by the marks of a vary individual imagination. Niamh Daly, Maria Doyle, Anne Slocket, Eamon O'Kane and Edel Campbell are all, in their contrasting ways, eye catching.
Frankly, I found the sculpture rather disappointing as a whole, not for the first time; there were too many large scale pieces which somehow lacked real invention or even inner conviction, and seemed to take up a lot of room relative to what they had to say. However, Chara Nagle's creation in coloured "bricks" of what appeared to be some reinous substance, with a light striking through from the rear was arresting and beautiful. The large scale installations of Gerry Pollard were intelligent and well thought out.
There is not sufficient space here to consider the crafts sections in detail, but the ceramics, glassware and jewellery are consistently inventive an varied. Best of all, however, is the textiles room at the very top of the NCAD building which vibrates with colour, ideas and talent.
