Charlie Tyrrell's selection of those who have left a mark on his career helps to illustrate just how strong an influence artists can be to each other. Accompanying statements guide us around this group show, recounting detailed thoughts and fascinating anecdotes.
Although not a particularly vivid or sprawling selection, it is clear that Charlie Tyrrell was not seduced by art books - instead drawing on his many years of experience of other painters. In recognition of this, if Tyrrell believes that Nano Reid's Mountain Farm glows, when it appears uncompromisingly muddy, this serves only to elucidate the personal motivation behind his selection.
The clearest link between many of the paintings here happens to be an earthy colouring, present also in Tyrrell's own Shadowlines I (his self-inclusion is necessary, given the biographical nature of the exhibition). Here, what initially implies hard edge offers much more, as the paint has a fragility which underscores the strength of its application.
Ciaran Lennon and Patrick Scott are the most directly communicable with Tyrrell's own fervently-preserved, formalist geometric abstraction. And yet, intriguingly, it appears nowhere else in the selection. Michael Cullen is even the antithesis, his bold, brash painting imbued with comparable personality.
Pat McAllister's Catacombs is more of an all-over painting which conceals very subtle structural depth. Patrick Collins, meanwhile, is like a symbol for Tyrrell's battle with the influence of landscape on abstraction.
Gerard Dillon's skeletons starkly convey the death of his three brothers and, apart from Reid, he provides the only other narrative context. The inclusion of the naive painter Michael Sheehan could be said to bow to the intuitive and uncomplicated side of painting rather than to the intellectual.
Until September 7th.