VISUALLY, Kilkenny Arts Week is as eventful as always; in fact it is hard to remember a year with so many worthwhile exhibitions on including group ones. All that is missing, perhaps, is one single outstanding, or dominant, artistic personality; so things tend to level out, but undoubtedly there is plenty of action.
The main event in the Butler Gallery - at least, it gets pride of place in the main gallery - is the sculpture exhibition by John Gibbons. He is Irish born, but apparently has not had a one man show here since the Project Arts Centre mounted his work in 1979 - an event which I remember, and may have missed. He works in steel, often in a kind of open framework format with an angular, up and down rhythm broken by cross struts. But the forms are varied a good deal, and some are painted, though the general effect is spare, almost skeletal and rigorously pared down.
Superficially Gibbons has something in common with Anthony Caro, but surfaces in the usual sense do not appear to interest him greatly, and volume is rarely suggested except through its absence. Most of the formal thrust is horizontal vertical, though there are contrasting tubular and disc like shapes, and Blood Line does suggest a river of blood (in case I am accused of being over fanciful, I refer readers to Aidan Dunne's catalogue introduction, in which he brings in the Holocaust, the Balkans, and Rwanda). In spite of this, however, I thought the predominant approach rather formalist and cool.
Upstairs in the Long Gallery, a difficult area for mounting exhibitions, the American photographer Stephen Johnson shows a whole range of outdoor subjects, mostly unpeopled landscapes, taken with the new "digital" camera. As I am relatively ignorant of photographic processes and never got much beyond an old fashioned Kodak, I can only say that one of the many advantages of this method is that it allows "deep" shots which also have amazingly fine detail. In certain of the mountainous subjects, this enables far off hillsides to appear in sharp focus, while in some of the closeup photos the texture is almost physical.
From speaking to the artist, I gather that there is now a flourishing school of landscape photography in the US, and that his own aim is essentially to be truthful and realistic, rather than aesthetically selective. But selection there is, like it or not, and tie snow scenes have a rare, spare integrity, the kind of thing you find in the best Minimal art. The variations of light, the vivid textures (Johnson now prints his own photos, and on specially chosen paper), the overall spaciousness and clarity, are quite exhilarating.
In Gallery II, Rosaleen Davey shows paintings in her chosen spare, almost geometric manner, mostly still life themes with a clear cut profile, yet formalised almost to abstraction. Light and shadow are severely, but not harshly, contrasted, and there is genuine subtlety in the underlying designs. Though at first sight these works may seem repetitive, they are in fact skilfully varied and have an intimate, though slightly cold poetry. The small - very small - works are freer and more obviously lyrical, but the refinement and taste are constant.
THE Kilkenny Colourists' group exhibition at the Market Cross - part of the Fringe - is rather a melange, almost bewilderingly so in fact. There is relatively little feeling of a group identity, rather a cluster of individual personalities who occasionally counterpoint one other. Tony O'Malley is included but is little more than a token presence; Francis Tansey shows his familiar brand of Pop abstraction; Ramie Leahy and Paula Minchin are colourful and uninhibited (they, at least, justify the group's title); Jane O'Malley is cool and elegant, while two interesting new faces are Roberta Sandberg and Christopher Galvin Harrison.
The quasi sculptural pieces of Saturio Alonso are individual and forceful, and they invariably stand out. Rather unexpectedly, Michael Ashur, Richard Gorman and Michael O'Dea make guest appearances, and Brian Breathnach's spoof pastiches have a kind of mildly anarchic humour. On the face of it, a good mix, but overall the effect is rather disjointed, like the hanging.
Also at the Market Cross is a small exhibition entitled Words in which a number of visual artists interpret the work of contemporary poets. Some of it is given over to rather familiar typographical tricks, a certain amount is precious and even misdirected; but nevertheless this is an exhibition with unity and a definite sense of direction, which deserves to be seen more than once. Eavan Boland and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill fare well in their respective interpreters; there are some highly imaginative wall sculptures, and a varied use of materials. The artists taking part are Dennis Brown, Frances Breen, Bettina Fumee, Gary Breeze, Stephen Raw, Phil Baines, John Cayley, Noel Connor.
Butler House plays hosts to five sculptors, and a contrasting lot they are. David Kinnane makes what he calls "wooden boxes and bronze objects contained within them." It is not as simple at that, however, since the "boxes" are almost solid pieces in their own right, and the interplay between them and the bronzes produces formal energy as well as a kind of edgy but rewarding dialogue.
James Hayes's tables and wall pieces have an almost jokey ambience, as have Derek Whitticase's varied, inventive, slightly precious works in a variety of media. These have an innate elegance, and at times a genuine visual wit; they are also fastidiously well made.
Maud Cotter, previously known as a stained glass artist, is equally inventive and varied, though I felt a restlessness which indicates search as much as finding. Marian O'Donnell is close to the "antiforin" sculpture of the 1970s, though with an individual twist.
Three contrasting artists share the space of the School of Music close by Vincent Hoban, Sue Melling and Richard Warner. The first is a photographer who chooses "straight" subjects - including Dublin buildings and scenes - but invests them with a very special mood and character. Certain "blurring" techniques make it seem as if the themes were being approached through a faint veil of memory or imagination.
SUE Melling's graphics combine computer techniques with traditional etching processes, and they do so with creative flair and no suggestion of contrivance. She also displays specially made books which are self contained works in their own right. Upstairs, the watercolours of Richard Warner, though occasionally mannered and/or obvious, have a genuinely poetic - and very English - quality of imagination which looks back to Blake and Palmer, as well as sharing something with Tolkien or even The Day of the Triffids.
A painter sculptor, Nils Gunnar Zander, shows at the Heltzel Gallery, a small space which suits these small scale works. The miniature free standing sculptures are, on the whole, less individual than the paintings, which are finely textured, luminous, and project a curiously mysterious, emblematic quality.
