Brian Fallon | Irish Times, 1997

Young artists of high promise

THIS exhibition has rapidly and surely become a prestige one, especially now that the GPA awards are already ancient history. The winner this year was Tom Climent, a young Cork-based painter whose work has not been seen yet in Dublin; but it is no putdown towards him to say that there was no immediate, obvious choice; the standard throughout is high this year - the highest level, perhaps, which I can remember in this event. Since all the exhibitors are young, this bodes well for the future, or even for the present.

Climent draws on the Spanish masters, Velazquez and Goya especially, sometimes almost to the degree of persiflage or parody of “official” portraiture. his handling is free and energetic, with a liking for impastos and a notable feeling for chiaroscuro. He paints boldly on a fairly large scale, and does not seem overawed in the least by the Grand Manner.

Sarah Walker’s bog paintings utilise a kind of striated form with a horizon line - a familiar device, but it is used subtly and her tonal sense is delicate and skilfully graduated.? The abstract pictures of Diana Copperwhite are built up in slabs of colour with a strong vertical bias, rather in the Abstract Expressionist manner, and show a good deal of brio and attack.

Oliver Comerford varies his usual urban theses with one striking painting of trees against a luminous sky; his rather hard, unrelieved colour effectively suggests the neon-lit glare of modern city life. David Quinn (new to me) paints small, classy, intimate pictures with a sure colour sense and a fine feeling for placing. It would be interesting to see him in greater bulk.

Fiona Joyce seems to be going through an Abstract Expressionist phase, with landscape undertones - has Sean McSweeney been an influence here. The head-on, full-frontal imagery of Suzanna Chan perhaps owes something to the august example of Georgia O’Keeffe, though with a more schematic format. And finally, Michael Canning - formally the most experimental artist on view - uses a variety of materials to produce well-thought-out works with a bias towards collage and a certain suggestion of constructivism.

As this year’s adjudicator, I can testify that the choice for the award was not easy; but I say that in the most positive sense, not a defensive one.