HIS exhibition has rapidly and surely become a prestige one. The winner this year was Tom Climent, whose work has not been seen in Dublin; but it is no put down to say there was no obvious choice. The standard is high this year the highest, perhaps, I can remember in this event.

Climent draws on the Spanish masters, sometimes almost to the degree of persiflage or parody of "official portraiture. His handling is free and energetic, with a liking for impastos and a notable feeling for chiaroscuro. He paints boldly on a fairly large scale, and does not seem overawed by the Grand Manner.

Sarah Walker's bog paintings utilise a kind of striated form with a horizon line - a familiar device, but it is used subtly and her tonal sense is delicate and skilfully graduated. The abstract pictures of Diana Copperwhite are built up in slabs of colour with a strong vertical bias, and show a good deal of brio and attack.

Oliver Comerford varies his usual urban themes with one striking painting of trees against a luminous sky; his rather hard, unrelieved colour effectively suggests the neon lit glare of modern city life. David Quinn paints small, classy, intimate pictures with a sure colour sense and a fine feeling for placing.

Fiona Joyce seems to be going though an Abstract Expressionist phase, with landscape undertones. The head on, full frontal imagery of Suzanna Chan perhaps owes something to the august example of Georgia O'Keeffe, though with a more schematic format. And Michael Canning - formally the most experimental artist on view - produces well thought out works with a bias towards collage and a certain suggestion of constructivism.

As this year's adjudicator, I can testify that the choice was not easy; but I say that in the most positive sense.