Marie Hanlon: It's All About Books
Cregan Library DCU, St Patrick's Campus, Dublin. Until March 15th glasdrum.ie
Though still threatened by a digital Armageddon of one form or another, books seem to have regained ground in the last couple of years. Marie Hanlon's installation works, in a show devised by DCU library and arts group GlasDrum, are reflections on the phenomenon of the book "as artefact, object, document, resource, entertainment and concept". Joyce, Beckett and Sterne are all referenced in different pieces.
Brian O'Doherty/Patrick Ireland: House Call
Mary-Ruth Walsh: A Silent Space in the Turning World
Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co Cork.Until April 27th siriusartscentre.ie
The final instalment of the One Here Now project includes selected older works by Brian O'Doherty and alternate personas Sigmund Bode and Patrick Ireland drawn from private collections, plus a new piece by the artist. Miranda Driscoll curated. Meanwhile, Mary-Ruth Walsh's newly commissioned paintings, collages and blueprints engage with his interest in "space, place and architecture".
Anne McLeod: Casting Light. Casting Shade
Signal Arts Centre, 1 Albert Avenue, Bray, Co Wicklow March 4th – 17th signalartscentre.ie
Technically exacting watercolurist Anne McLeod is known for her landscape, plant, floral and animal studies. Beyond her sound sense of colour, her watercolour compositions are complex arrangements of light and shade, tonal schemes in which the white of the paper is saved for "the cleanest highlights", requiring great forethought and precision. Originally from the Lake District, she has long been based in rural Ireland, first in Limerick, then Co Wexford.
ModBrit
Group show. Hillsboro Fine Art, 49 Parnell Sq West, Dublin Until March 23rd hillsborofineart.com
Before the YBAs and following on from the classic modernists of British art like Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth, there was a generation of modernists that was largely eclipsed by the advent of pop and conceptual art. That group of highly talented individuals includes several of those who feature in this show: Sandra Blow, Basil Beattie, Gillian Ayres, Henry Cliffe, Albert Irvin and Roger Hilton.
Morning Commute
Patricia Burns. Taylor Galleries, 16 Kildare St, Dublin Until March 23rd taylorgalleries.ie
Patricia Burns' moodily atmospheric paintings have often focused on a world glimpsed in transit, an anomalous, in-between space on the cusp of suburbia and countryside. Her new work suggests a daily journey, from the first intimations of the outside world, the ragged skyline, in the morning light, and then into the landscape, actual and imagined. Implicit is the idea of home, a starting point and destination.
