A slightly edited version of this piece appeared in the Sunday Times Culture magazine on 9 March 2014.
SO Fine Art Editions is a newish gallery in South Anne Street that specialises in limited edition prints, sculpture and photography. Its first solo exhibition features prints by the eminent Scottish artist Barbara Rae. This is an artist who gets around. The titles include Karoo, Autumn Sierra, Vaucluse, and Achill Fence. She's a regular visitor the the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Mayo so the West of Ireland is well represented. Rae asserts that the most important development in her career was when she was invited to Santa Fe, New Mexico, for a few months. The intensity and clarity of the light there changed the way she used colour in her work. And indeed lush luxuriant colour has become her trade mark - even her Achill scenes are dominated by reds, oranges and yellows. Rae eschews the tag of landscape painter notwithstanding her depictions of various exotic locales. Her interests are less on the bounty of nature and more on the marks of man's encroachments. Landscape is the backdrop for her of the patterns and objects he has left behind.
SO Fine Art Editions
Mon-Fri: 10am-5.30pm
Sat: 11am-5pm
Phone: 01-472 1050
John P. O'Sullivan
