Carol Hodder - Shorelines

This review first appeared in the Sunday Times Culture magazine on the 14th August 2016.

The Catherine Hammond Gallery has moved from Glengarrif to the centre of Skibbereen - just down the road from the great corten steel hulk that is the West Cork Arts Centre. Its dedication to work of the highest quality continues. The inner gallery currently contains paintings by Michael Canning, Martin Gale, Stephen Lawlor, John Doherty, and Donald Teskey. The main gallery features an impressive new show by Carol Hodder - who has shown at the RHA, RUA and the RA and who won a prize last year at NOA, the UK's largest open submission exhibition. Although the title of the show is Shorelines these are not landscapes or seascapes in any conventional sense. They are inspired by the real world but they push beyond it towards abstraction resulting in work that seems more metaphysical than physical. Many, such as Evening Shoreline (above), capture that elegiac mood when the light is fading and the divisions between land, sea and sky begin to blur. The predominant darkness of the work is relieved by a positively Turneresque use of light and by dramatic splashes of rich colour, mostly yellows and reds. These powerfully atmospheric and expressive works invite contemplation rather then mere viewing.

Catherine Hammond Gallery
Skibereen
Mon-Sat: 11am-6pm
Tel: 028 51690

 

John P. O'Sullivan

 

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Charles Tyrrell - New Paintings

An edited version of this piece was published in the Sunday Times Culture magazine on 30 August 2015.

It's fitting that the West Cork Arts Centre has honoured the memory of Jim O'Driscoll, naming its ground floor gallery after a man who was an indefatigable supporter of art in the region. It's a shame it refers to him as "James" however. He was known as "Jim" throughout the art world - and the legal world. He would have loved to have been around for the current exhibition where Charles Tyrrell, who he much admired and collected, continues his manoeuvres on aluminium. Tyrrell refers to his painting as "a dance within a structure". The metal is engraved with a grid and then scored loosely - allowing the paint to circulate sinuously. When we view Tyrrell's work we keep looking for signs of the spectacular landscapes and seascapes around his home in Allihies. An easy option he righteously avoids. He works from a studio with only a skylight - like Ulysses negotiating the Sirens. Occasionally we think we've caught him with his defences down - as in A5.15 (above). That's surely an elegiac sunset over the Atlantic framed within a dark coastline. Also, a number of the smaller pieces with their strong horizontals contain intimations of landscapes. But mostly this stern, stately, abstract work exists in a realm beyond the painted veil of mere appearance.

West Cork Arts Centre

Skibbereen

 

 

 

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