Rosie McGurran

Rosie McGurran is a painter primarily known for her work in murals, many of which adorn the gable ends of West Belfast

Rosie McGurran is a painter primarily known for her work in murals, many of which adorn the gable ends of West Belfast. She has branched out into pastels and even easel painting before, but her work here takes her street art in an unexpected direction.

The show, called Whatever You Say . .. and featuring a number of large acrylic on board works, is notable for the absence of the women of west Belfast" whose sturdy figures usually feature in McGurran's work.

Instead, the painter has shifted her critique of the political situation in the North onto a far more metaphorical level.

The centrepiece of the show is a series of four square canvases, with deep, sculptural stretchers. Lit with bold, primary colours, all seem to feature one carapace like shape, shifted into various incarnations.

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On one occasion it appears as a rudimentary rowboat, on another it resembles the cracked helmet of a soldier, lying still as though it has fallen from his head after some fatal combat.

Sometimes the shape is illuminated by a shaft of heavenly light, sometimes it seems to have sunk unseen to the bottom of a lake.

It is strange to see work that has always been so direct, even while maintaining its characteristic sense of humour, suddenly take such an elliptical approach. McGurran's smart, vocal paintings are as different from Willie Doherty's chicly taciturn photos as any two works concerning the same situation could be.

With Whatever You Say..., which seems to deal with unmentioned, and therefore unhealed, wounds the two move a significant degree closer.