Glimpses of a burnt-out universe

IT IS ROUTINELY said of artists and writers that they like to play god. John Banville specifically engages with the notion by putting the god Hermes in charge in his novel The Infinities.

The book also alludes to a potential implication of quantum theory, to the effect that there are an infinite number of universes, not just the one. This is where Paul Mosse comes in.

His superb exhibition MAKE. BREAK. MAKE.at the Butler Gallery is perhaps his best to date. Furthermore, a persuasive interpretation of his singular approach to making art is to say that, with each individual piece, he starts a universe from scratch, decides that it will adhere to a set of arbitrary rules, and charts its progress in a curiously dispassionate, hands-off kind of way.

“Hands-off” is meant in a figurative sense, because in purely literal terms, the work is relentlessly, even ferociously hands-on. What we see in the gallery, the fantastic visual complexity of each piece, the mind-boggling proliferation of detail, emerges from prolonged physical processes, not uncommonly extending over years. Mosse uses, as he puts it, “low-tech craft and materials”. For example, he’ll use an electric drill to drill into a plywood surface thousands of times according to a given pattern, and, with the addition of glue, the saw dust from the drilling is recycled into the evolving work.

“The systems and processes,” he elaborates, “push the work into areas beyond conscious decision making.” Some years back he referred to the “cool and distanced . . . aggression” implicit in his method. He is an interested observer of the universes he makes and, as with the universe we inhabit, the startling, baroque complexity of his creations emerge from endlessly repeated actions determined by the rigorous application of simple, algorithmic rules rather than, say, aesthetic decisions made along the way.

This way of working pushes his art into an unconventional, indeterminate form. “The end result,” he says, “is textured and sculptural, and can be three-dimensional sculpture-proper, but usually it is resolved as ‘two-and-a-half D painting’.”

One of the questions his work raises, and doesn’t try to answer, is just when any particular piece is “resolved” or finished. As Butler director Anne O’Sullivan comments: “Works that seem complete and resolved may over time be revised beyond recognition or entirely cut up and laid in a box to be reconstituted in another work.” She writes of prising the work from the grip of the studio to make the exhibition.

Conscious or unconscious, resolved or glimpsed while indefinitely in progress – as, when you think about it, everyone and everything is – the individual works have tremendous individual presence and identity when you meet them face to face in the gallery. They are visually engrossing, fascinating objects. More often than not, they have the air of being aftermaths, perhaps burnt-out universes that have gone through their life cycles. Certainly, they are objects with formidable histories, objects that have lived the hard life.

"Textured and sculptural" is putting it mildly. They come across as venerable and ancient. The title of one modestly scale piece, Black Holes, sets the tone, and actually it's a beautiful little piece that does seem to contain vast, unimaginable energies. Untitled (Pink),on the other hand, is a snapshot of one of two things: a universe bursting into life, or collapsing into a black hole. Or neither, of course, because Mosse doesn't depict anything. It is a compelling, strange object, delicate but, again, charged with immense energy.

To go through the gallery is to encounter a succession of strange objects. You could call them alien objects, because they don't correspond to anything else you're likely to see, and they result from invented, organised processes quirkily different to, for example, those that produce an orthodox painting, or a sculpture. There's a Pink Floor Piece,which rather resembles a cushion of coral, Deep Polystyrene Holes,which is really extraordinary, almost disturbing in its other-worldliness and Reversed, a densely layered construction that seems to turn its face to the wall. Every one of them is a distinct treat, in its peculiar otherness.

Mosse was born in Bennettsbridge, Co Kilkenny in 1946. He studied at Berkshire College of Art and then at Chelsea School of Art in London throughout the 1960s. A quiet, modest man, he is now based in Co Kilkenny. From the beginning, his work has been extraordinary in a way that sets him slightly apart from any artistic mainstream. But it has earned him the admiration of those who’ve taken it on its own terms – while still a student, in 1968, he won the main award in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art.

MAKE. BREAK. MAKE.is well worth a trip to Kilkenny in itself. It is worth mentioning, besides, that across the road from the Castle, the National Craft Gallery is showing Deirdre McLoughlin's excellent ceramic sculptures in Shaping the Void. Meanwhile, not that far away at Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, you can see Eileen MacDonagh's outstanding survey show, Lithosphere.It would all add up to a fantastic day out, and there are no entry charges at any of the venues.

MAKE.BREAK.MAKEPaul MosseButler Gallery, The Castle, Kilkenny Runs until March 4