It was in 1998 that the annual Claremorris Open Exhibition (COE) underwent a radical move from formal gallery setting to the intriguing possibilities of exhibiting in various locations around the Co Mayo town. From that new beginning, the reinvented COE has firmly established itself as a public showcase for the more contemporary end of the visual arts in Ireland, and COE 2001, subtitled EXPRESSION/S/PACE, opened to the public on September 15th.

From its modest beginnings in 1978 as part of Claremorris's Annual Summer Festival, COE quickly established itself as part of the national visual arts calendar, despite the fact that it had no dedicated venue, relying instead on the improvised gallery space created for it every year in the local Town Hall.

Nevertheless, its reputation continued to grow, due in no small part to the quality of the work that was being submitted by an impressive array of artists. It was only in the 1990s that the first mumbled criticisms began to emerge about suitability of venue and incipient formulism. Things came to a head in 1996 when The Arts Council unexpectedly withdrew funding after 17 years of unbroken support, and while COE's organising committee successfully managed to source alternative sponsorship for the next two exhibitions, clearly something was going to have to change.

One feasibility study, committee reorganisation and philosophical rethink later, and the new COE was ready to hit the streets - literally. The result was a show with a more contemporary feel, an acknowledgement of newer artforms (such as installation, video and performance), and with artists responding to specific locations rather than to an anonymous gallery space: very different ideas from previous years. However, perhaps in deference to the fundamental nature of the change, the exhibition has tended towards the "friendlier" face of contemporary art, aiming to engage rather than to alienate.

Over the past four years, COE has undergone further changes, and the trend is towards a more limited number of locations (the first two years had works spread over some 30 locations, while this year there are just 10) and the inclusion of more formal gallery spaces, including the town's new dedicated An Tinteβn gallery.

Ultimately, the idea of work within a context is still an important factor in the adjudicating process, a fact acknowledged in the current COE catalogue by this year's adjudicator, Lewis Biggs, recently appointed director of the Liverpool Biennial.

"The fact that we refer now to the schools of London or New York, as much as to the Renaissance schools of Florence or Venice, should remind us that individual artists and their artworks have never stood free of the specific context in which they are made and first received." In his view, what is important for COE "is the extent to which the artists are able to be sensitive, in the creation, selection or presentation of their work, to the context in which it is shown." The results of this sympathetic adjudication process are now there for all to see.

A case in point is Niamh O'Malley's Prospects, a realistically-rendered work based on a specific view photographed by the artist and sited on one of the main roads into Claremorris. Overlapping with the real landscape, the piece acts as a visual portal into the town, offering a kind of postmodern take on the concept of the advertising hoarding, emphasising the relationship between the art on show and the town itself - and also, by asking the viewer to find the precise location at which to view the piece, it forges a subtle link between artist and viewer.

There is an air of subversive complicity in Christopher Banahan's Letter Box Memoirs, where the viewer is invited to peer through letter boxes to view the works - small, atmospheric, finely-rendered images based on members of the artist's family. Invited to become the furtive observer, there is a sense of snatching glimpses of private lives behind the front door, of furtive voyeurism. The result is uncomfortable but intriguing, and totally engaging.

Collette Nolan's Retablos makes reference to the Mexican votive offerings of the same name, and creates a shrine-like shop window with a na∩ve, folk art quality, reminiscent of the directness and self-belief of outsider art.

Painted onto recycled tin, the works display a refreshingly unsophisticated use of materials and symbolism - holy virgins and angels hover offering succour, there are depictions of sick people in hospital beds, of limbs and organs, combining with holy medals and other religious accoutrements.

Stifling yet fascinating, the work is a captivating evocation of the internal logic of belief.

Geraldine O'Brien's video installation Sensuality, Rebirth is a highly personal piece, a voice-over account by the artist of her last exchange with her sister the evening before her death: an everyday conversation about dresses that in its context takes on a special significance of sharing, and the need to maintain normality in the face of absolutes. O'Brien herself is filmed wearing the dresses and we are offered a glimpse into the internal landscape of the artist, with its sense of estrangement, attachment and grief.

An extension from her submission to last year's COE, Claire Halpin's six painted Engram Fragments are rich, quiet works in which ghostly partial images hover ethereally and tantalisingly just within view. Based on photographs of the artist's family, the works present moments half-frozen in memory, with resonances of separation, longing, transience and the passage of time.

In the same emotional territory, Jean Conroy's Protection Of What Was is another fine example of site specificity: life-sized, white plaster-cast baby dresses - babies invoked by their absence - standing singly, in pairs and in threes around the lawns of a housing project for older people. The pieces create a quietly surreal ambience, as if evoking a subtle ghostly presence from the memories of past lives, and the result is affecting, poignant and haunting in its heartfelt simplicity.

Other works of note include Lucy Hill's series of triptychs - expressive, powerful, colour compositions that are both vibrant and energetic, and that suggest an exciting painting talent; Christophe Neumann's Net 1, a silhouetted cut-out covered in geometric elements of commercial packaging, achieving a delightfully subtle interplay of colour and tonal graduation, with a nod towards pop art, recycling and a very contemporary folk art sensibility; and Ciara Moore's Venus Fly Trap, a multi-video installation about desire and obsession, that exudes all the dark wit and oppressiveness of an early David Lynch movie.

That a small town in Mayo can continue to act as a national artistic focus is no mean feat, and is testament to the ongoing efforts of the COE committee and its chairman John Kirrane. Another good vintage.

The Claremorris Open Exhibition 2001 runs until October 6th