John P O’Sullivan | Review of Season Map | The Gallery Room @ Liss Ard Estate | The Sunday Times | 2015
The glorious gardens of Liss Ard Estate in Skibbereen boast James Turrell’s Sky Garden, arguably the most spectacular piece of public art in the country. This summer there’s an additional reason for art lovers to visit – a large and impressive exhibition by Tom Climent. He’s yet another Cork artist whose work is inclined to blush unseen due to the recent closure of the city’s two commercial galleries – the Fenton and the Vanguard. Climent’s initial momentum – through a much-vaunted graduate show, followed by various awards, including the Victor Treacy and Tony O’Malley prizes, and a number of successful solo shows – has slowed somewhat. This exhibition should help propel him back to the front ranks of Irish artists. The bright and airy spaces of the beautiful Georgian building provide an ideal setting for this most painterly of painters. The shapes and structures in his paintings are the stages on which his sensual colours dance. Gorge your eyes on paintings such as Groundwater and Mantle, where luxuriant purples, greens and blues disport themselves around their ectoplasmic scaffolding.
Liss Ard Estate, Castletownshend Road, Skibbereen, Co.Cork, Ireland