BEVERLY SEMMES is an artist with an international cachet, particularly in New York, who has been seen before - though not in any numbers - at IMMA. The present exhibition, mounted in close proximity to the le Brocquy retrospective comprises ten large "sculptures" of what are, in effect out size women's clothing. They are backed up by some small photographs, rather like shrunken fashion pictures showing similar (but smaller) garments being actually worn on the whole, these do not add a lot.
Beverly Semmes's trademark is outsize dresses, gowns or robes, looking as though made for a race of giantesses; generally they are left partly hanging, partly folded, making a right angle to the wall. They are made from rich or costly materials (at least, so it seems to me) including red velvet and silver lame (crushed), and are glowingly, almost barbarically colourful.
These huge garments have an opulent but also strangely surreal presence and even evoke something slightly macabre, since they suggest commensurately massive (though human) bodies which are mysteriously absent, or scenarios which the viewer must fill in for himself/herself.
It seems obvious enough that Claes Oldenburg's Giant Pair of Pants and similar works have supplied some suggestions, while the images also recall certain paintings by Magritle. Probably the "soft" sculptures of Robert Morris are another antecedent. But Semmes works in a very different emotional area from these, at once luxurious and faintly sinister. Yellow Duchess is virtually a self contained installation, helped by strong, direct lighting.
Semmes is rather a single track artist, and it seems fair enough to say that this is the kind of exhibition which invites you to read between the lines and to flesh out imaginatively what is merely hinted at. These works are, as I have suggested, virtual scenarios in which the theatrical, even contrived element is strong. But they are vivid and exotic, and in spite of the obvious note of High Camp they do register an immediate impact which matches their more than life size scale. They do, on their own terms, demand that you look at them.
