Iconography

Paul Kane Gallery, Merrion Sq, Dublin Tues-Fri 11am- 6pm, Sat noon-5pm Until Apr 30 thepaulkanegallery.com

Typically in Philippa Sutherland’s almost monochromatic paintings, enigmatic figures linger in carefully tended landscapes, and we’re invited to identify with their introspective moods. There’s a cool fashion aesthetic about them, with a nod to both style photography and cinema. Sutherland’s new body of work incorporates video and, by drastically editing the available information in the images, plays with the way we interpret what we see.

As it happens, her show is one of three just opened that feature contemporary strategies in representational painting. At the Cross Gallery, Simon English’s Nothing Lasts Forever consists of ambiguous narrative paintings based on fragmentary but vivid memories. His work has a dreamy, haunting quality not a million miles in feeling from some of Kazuo Ishiguro’s fiction. At the Temple Bar Gallery, meanwhile, Mark O’Kelly’s Figure of 8 considers the unconscious as language and “the psychological poetry of the image”, drawing on the work of writer and theorist Maurice Blanchot and writer Elizabeth Smart.

Can't see that? Catch this

Interior Reflections Kilcock Art Gallery, Co Kildare Tues- Fri 10am-4pm, Sat 2-4.30pm Apr 11-30 01-6287619