Considering that contemporary art can throw up just about anything, this exhibition is, by anyone's standards, strange. Using a variety of media and a panoply of displaying formats, Fintan O'Byrne has essentially taken the human figure as his subject, while at the same time eschewing conventional life study. This is replaced by a reliance upon more imaginative precepts and an odd cocktail of mysticism, mediaevalism, biblical reference and poetic musings.
In short it is idiosyncratic and irreverent: all over the place even. One piece uses a veil of transparent silicon on which palm bark is glued to form a life-sized human figure, elsewhere thread is used to similar ends. An animal skull is tied to a canvas in one example, in another, this support is cut into strips and hung like a tapestry. Elsewhere, an old book is mounted in a case and painted with unsettling images. Even what appeared to be conventional painting has origins in computer or mechanically printed techniques - either that or he has painstakingly reproduced a dot matrix - which all things considered, could not be fully ruled out.
But if this incredulity at O'Byrne's approach sounds dismissive, then it is not intended to be so. Instead there is something quite invigorating about his open and discursive exploration of media and imagery. As a unit, his work compensates for the examples which offer no solutions or explanations of their own. Viewed in isolation though, say at a group exhibition, certain pieces might become so difficult to unravel, that accepting their eccentricities may require a great deal more patience.
Until August 7th.