Depths

Molesworth Gallery, 16 Molesworth St, Dublin  Tues- Fri 10.30am-5.30pm, Sat 11am-2pm Until Jun 25 01-6791548

Less is more in Bridget O’Rourke’s finely tuned abstract paintings. Expanses of oil pigment are progressively applied and scraped away. Sometimes, she notes, it takes as many as 60 reworkings to arrive at a surface that satisfies her.

O’Rourke doesn’t build up thick masses of paint, however. Fine layers of semi- transparent glazes allow us glimpses of what lies beneath, and O’Rourke likes this sense of underlying or inner vitality.

The painter was brought up as an Irish Catholic in the US, and religious art is an acknowledged influence, though not in an iconic way. Fiachra Gibbons has written that O’Rourke likes the way religious art can be regarded “almost universally as a tool for meditation”.

O’Rourke sees her own paintings as meditative distillation of visual memories, an attempt to convey something of the essence of experience in a minimal physical form.

Can't see that? Catch this

FractalsCIT Crawford College of Art Design, Cork Jun 19-26