ROBERT Armstrong is essentially - in fact, almost exclusively - a landscapepainter, and one who in some ways has been rather a slow developer. A certain duality can be sensed in his work - at one extreme a sweeping handler of paint, fond of the gestural attack, the broad stroke and the direct, almost simplistic approach. At the other is a potentially "straight" landscape painter who seems at times to be struggling to get out.

At one stage he seemed to be feeling the impact of William Crozier, whose Cork landscapes reconcile such a duality - abstract attack combined with a definite, though not specific, sense of place and atmosphere. His approach, however, continued to be a little simplistic, even coarse. Which is why his new exhibition at the Hallward marks such a clear advance on the past.

Instead of a panoramic manner a la Crozier, this time he generally opts for a closeup one, faintly resembling that of Sean McSweeney although both the palette and the mentality are different. Like McSweeney, he appears to be fascinated by water, its reflections and the play of light, and he also largely cancels out perspective and gives you a virtual standing wall of paint. Not an opaque wall, however - it is shot with light and stabs of bright colour, frequently giving a rippling effect like the sun on a river.

The handling has developed notably, and in general these pictures seem much more thought out than than their predecessors. The legacy of Abstract Expressionism seems plain enough, and there is some similarity to the later de Kooning, but then all this is very much in the air just now: Abstract Expressionism seems to have gained a second or third wind.