Super-saturated pink palettes and giddy allegorical fantasies

This week’s visual art highlights


TO SOMETHING THAT WENT BEFORE (CS deK)

Brian Fay. Oonagh Young Gallery, 1 James Joyce St, Dublin Until December 22nd oonaghyoung.com

Taking his title from Mary Shelley's introduction to her 1831 edition of Frankenstein, in his new series of drawings Brian Fay considers how interventions, from conservation to erasure to adaptation, have remade or changed works by Cimabue, Shelley and Willem de Kooning.

THE WEIGHT OF LIGHT

Pat Harris. Taylor Galleries, 16 Kildare St, Dublin Until December 8th taylorgalleries.ie

Pat Harris’s new paintings, made in his studio on the north Mayo coast, at Carrowteige and Kilgalligan, look to the coastline landscape of rock, sea and light, together with studies of small flowers in the studio. In an accompanying publication, he views them as dealing with space, time and light.

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EARTH, WIND & FIRE: MADE IN CORK CONTEMPORARY

Six artists. Crawford Art Gallery, Emmet Place, Cork Until February 17th crawfordartgallery.ie

Curator Anne Boddaert brings together work by six Cork-based artists whose diverse work – “from ancient processes to new (machine) technologies” – shares a commitment to excellence in craftsmanship. They are Nuala O’Donovan, Eoin Turner, Alex Pentek, Mary Palmer and Anne Kiely, and Joseph Walsh. It’s a formidable line-up of exceptional talents.

TOOLS FOR WELLBEING: ‘SCAPES: ROSE QUARTZ’

Barbara Knezevic. An online sculptural show at Berlin Opticians Gallery, Dublin Until January 8th berlinopticiansdublin.com

Timed just in advance of Christmas, Barbara Knezevic’s work is in “a register of excess and over-fullness”, promoting a sense “of plenitude and amplification” via a super-saturated pink palette among other things. It is a strand in her exploration of narratives of wellness and healing in the form of objects, materials and ambience.

WAYFARER

Peter Burns. Claremorris Gallery, Mount St, Claremorris, Co Mayo Until December 1st claremorrisgallery.com

Peter Burns’s paintings and mixed-media sculptures are dispatches from a heightened world of giddy allegorical fantasy that intersects and overlaps with the everyday to a disconcerting degree. Drawing on mythology, fiction and the iconography of popular culture and art history, he conjures magical but readily comprehensible scenes rich in character and incident.