THIS is a bona fide exhibition not a collection of basement leftovers or small, saleable pictures for the Christmas market. It is particularly notable for mounting the first Camille Souter pictures I have seen in some time six small oils on paper, including a striking, torrid Italian landscape and a Wicklow scene with power cables marching across.
Charles Tyrrell shows two paintings, each bisected by horizon" lines, rather austere and simplified both in format and style, yet eloquent and virile. Cecily Brennan is remarkably assured in watercolour as, of course, is Martin Gale. Both Mary Lohan and Bernadette Kiely work in a landscape style heavy with impastoes, yet with a sense of luminosity coming through the thick, ridged paint.
There are a number of Tony O'Malley's gouaches from the 1970s, a le Brocquy head and several of his small, fluent (and fluid), ultra accomplished watercolours. The small seascapes winter waves breaking on rocks by Jill Dennis are gutsy and concentrated, and Nancy Wynne Jones shows two of her intimate, richly toned landscapes.
Sculpture by Melanie le Brocquy, Brian King, Conor Fallon, John Coen and an interesting ceramic work by Patrick O'Connor add to the variety and give a balance. A series of etchings by Diarmuid Delargy Beckett's face is prominent watercolours by William Crozier and works by Charles Brady, Michael Cullen, Janet Pierce, Jane O'Malley, Barbara Warren and James McKenna (two drawings) are other features of a show which is unusually strong.