Room for manoeuvre

Visual Arts: Reviewed - Winged Figure and other paintings, Anne Madden, Centre Culturel Irlandais, College des Irlandais, 5 Rue des Irlandais, Paris until July 9th, tel: 00331-58521030.

The gallery at the Irish Cultural Centre, the College des Irlandais in Paris, is a substantial, versatile and beautiful venue, and Anne Madden clearly decided to make the most of it for her current exhibition there. Rather than merely follow the conventional pattern of a solo show, she has made an ambitious installation of just three large, composite works: Winged Figure, Aurora b. and A Space of Time. The first makes a single image, while the latter two are composed of groups of individual paintings, numbering five and 12 respectively.

All refer in some way to space, light and, by fact or implication, to flight. And all are to some extent ambiguous in terms of their import. In them, Madden develops several of her characteristic pictorial elements and concerns, including the idea of the quest or journey, of human aspirations shadowed by tragedy, the importance of the maintenance of classical values and authenticity.

All the while there is as well an affirmation of the transcendent scope offered by artistic endeavour, a faith in the capacity of art to offer room for imaginative manoeuvre despite the limitations imposed by life and fate, and the flaws and folly of human nature.

Winged Figure is an enormous painting, almost four metres high by three-and-a-half metres wide. It makes the maximum use of the gallery's considerable height.

The figure of the title extends throughout its five constituent panels, yet the background space of each panel is tonally distinct from its neighbours. In other words the overall background space is discontinuous and fragmented. It is almost as if it is the job of the huge, ethereal figure to hold the fractured spaces together which, in compositional terms, it does chiefly by means of the swirling spiral patterns of its wings.

A winged figure invites the thought that it may be an angel of some kind. Angels have been very much in vogue in the last few years. In particular, many people have been much taken with the notion of a personal guardian angel. In an age of anxiety, one can see the appeal of enjoying the protection and guidance of a personal, supernatural companion, whether such a companion adopts angelic form or, to take another example, is a six-foot rabbit called Harvey. But if Madden's winged figure is an angel, it does not seem to be a personal guardian in that sense.

In classical mythology angels are, as in the original Greek angelos, messengers of the gods. As such they earned a secure place in mythological and religious iconography over a period of centuries. They were even organised into an elaborate hierarchical system of nine distinct categories: a far cry from the original Mercury, a speedy courier with useful winged sandals.

It seems fair enough to see Madden's figure as a messenger, and one bearing a warning. Equally, though, it may be the angel of history, facing backwards, away from the future, looking forlornly over the shambles and chaos of human affairs. But there is another strong, non-angelic antecedent in Madden's own work for the role of winged figure, and that is Icarus who, enthralled by his ability to fly with wings fashioned from wax and feathers, flew so close to the sun that the wax melted and he fell to earth. The symbolism of Icarus's fatal flight has been variously interpreted. He can stand for extremity of any kind, for overarching ambition, hubris and, on the other hand, he can represent an entirely praiseworthy ambition and curiosity.

It is fair to say that in Madden's treatments she generally inclines towards the latter view. Her Icarus figures are nobly driven to explore the unknown even though they may perish in the attempt.

In the case of Winged Figure it is as if the spectral figure, indicated by clusters of marks that verge on abstraction, is caught at the moment of immolation, having flown not so much too close to the sun as into the sun. Again there is an intimation of impending disaster, the sense of a warning.

The 12 paintings that make up the series A Space of Time use a related motif that also features elsewhere in Madden's work: another winged creature, this time a bird. For her the bird is surely symbolic of human consciousness and, as with Icarus, its flight or fall - Madden leaves the question largely open - relates to our perilous position in the world.

Finally, the six paintings under the title Aurora b. refer to the atmospheric lighting phenomenon named after the goddess of the dawn. Aurora does trail some negative, even tragic, associations. The morning dew is said to be composed of the tears she shed for her son Memnon, slain by Achilles. And she was fated to love several mere mortals, hopelessly. But on the whole she has an optimistic, energising presence, a guarantor of light and life, of renewed hope.

Light has long played an important role in Madden's painting. After one prolonged period of mourning, for example, her return to work, and her renewed confidence in the consoling power of art, was signalled in a series of works described as forming a path of light - a shining path. It was, literally and figuratively, the path back to the studio, a refuge and place of enlightened possibility.

It is important to remember that, apart from their iconographic properties, the paintings in her show in Paris are luxuriant, optically-rich surfaces. She uses gold pigment, which means that the surfaces themselves change in relation to our movement before them, as the light is absorbed or reflected. The gold can gleam like sunlight and, equally, depending on one's angle of view, it can appear to be black. But even apart from the gold, the fields of radiant colour, applied in dense, particulate masses, seem to shimmer and glow. Our eyes are never still when we look at them.

Such qualities have always been important to her. She was significantly shaped as a painter by aspects of Abstract Expressionism. The rich, engaging surfaces of her work are both statements and celebrations of that prized room for manoeuvre afforded by all imaginative endeavour.