Sales may have been poor in recent years, but the quality of work at this year's annual exhibition at the RHA is exceptionally strong. AIDAN DUNNEselects some stand-out pieces from the 600 works on view

HOW TO approach an event as vast as the 181st Annual RHA Exhibition? With close on 600 individual works, it is really too much to take in on one visit and in one viewing.

The last two annual shows fared poorly in terms of sales. Hardly surprising, given the unraveling economic background. But whatever about the wretched state of the economy, this is an exceptionally good year for the exhibition in terms of quality.

Considered in terms of the traditional academic categories of History, Portrait, Genre, Landscape and Still Life, the show suggests that while each is transformed by time, they maintain their relevance.

The exhibition runs until July 30th royalhibernianacademy.ie

History

Must see

Mary Kelly's panoramic Site is an interesting counterpart to TP Flanagan's Boglands. It too is a dark, moody, wet landscape, but essentially it's a giant hole in the ground, a space where our economy once was. In its strange, desolate expanses, its broken skyline, there are stories of delusion, of projects aborted and abandoned. Kelly is an artist who, over several years, explored many aspects of the property and construction boom and the ways in which it was insidiously affecting and changing our society.

Also see

Anthony Haughey has also documented the building boom, tracing the impact of relentless suburban developments on rural landscapes in his series Settlement. Mick O'Dea moves on from his acclaimed Black & Tansseries to treat other historical documents, including a study of William Joyce, Lord Haw-Haw, in fascist style uniform with friends. Abstraction can tackle ideas in the real world, as Ronnie Hughes, James O'Connor and Bridget Flannery demonstrate with fine works.

Portrait

Must see

Toronto-born Erin Quinn has lived in Ireland for more than a decade, and what an interesting decade it's been, in ways good and bad. The subject of her photograph Breaking Point No 2isn't named, but it is a portrait. There's a starkness and clarity to the image that is admirable, not just because it's graphically eloquent, which it is, but also because it concentrates a wealth of implication in its simple format. It works as a contemporary take on Ophelia, a post-boom Ophelia, perhaps, driven beyond endurance by factors way beyond her control. As a document of our time, it's first class.

Also see

More conventional portraits are strongly represented this year. Among the most striking are James Hanley's formidable painting of the Chief Justice, Hon Justice John L Murray, which expresses character as well as office, Colin Davidson's looming study of Roddy Doyle as a head full of stories, John Minihan's electrically alive photograph of Richard Burton, George Potter's splendid, Wodehouse-like self-portrait, Geneive Figgis's Bess, Una Sealy's fraught couple in Neighboursand let's not forget the exquisite painting of both Cristina Bunello and Miseon Lee.

Genre

Must see

Amanda Coogan’s Madonna cradles not an infant but, as befits a material girl, a designer bag boasting a baroque level of decorative excess. Coogan references the Renaissance purity of an iconographic figure and seamlessly combines it with the fetishised nature of contemporary consumer culture. What’s really interesting is that she is not a moralist.

Don’t look for diatribes against consumerism and materialism, or a longing for the restoration of simpler, spiritual values, because you won’t find them. Just an account of the way we live now, with its many layers and nuances.

Also see

Michael Cullen does an epic, anarchic reworking of Velázquez's iconic masterpiece Las Meninas. Jennifer Cunningham is an acute observer of adolescent worlds. Veronica Bolay illuminates the everyday – Woman, Outsideis particularly good.

Outstanding paintings by Diana Copperwhite address the vertiginous experience of contemporary culture with its myriad electronic interconnections. Also see Mary McIntyre, Karen Brunnermeier, Sheila Rennick and Ben O’Reilly’s sculptures.

Landscape

Must see

Each year the RHA pays tribute to members who have died during the previous 12 months and this year’s show, sadly, features a group of works by Northern Irish artist TP Flanagan, who died suddenly last February. He was one of the finest Irish landscape painters to date and a superb watercolourist.

The most striking piece of his on view is not, however, a watercolour, it's actually painted in acrylic. Boglandsfor Seamus Heaney from 1967 was a breakthrough work, and its vigour and freshness still shine through. Painted when Flanagan and his wife were on holiday at Gortahork, Co Donegal with Seamus and Marie Heaney. Uncharacteristically dark for Flanagan, it's a powerful painting that exemplifies his flair for combining architectonic structure with calligraphic spontaneity.

Also see

Not that it’s a bad year for landscape otherwise: there are fine examples in Carey Clarke’s expansive view of an early spring thaw, Eithne Jordan’s Brewery, Patricia Looby’s rugged, map-like field plan, Mary Lohan’s subtle shoreline studies, Melita Denaro’s lyrical, light-filled rural scene, Niall Naessens’ superbly disciplined etchings, Donald Teskey’s vast, geological shoreline view and many more. Eilís O’Connell (a superb series of photographs), Stephen McKenna, Bernadette Kiely, Rachael Bourke and Simon Burch are also must-sees.

Still Life

Must see

Is Rachel Parry's Lilitha still life? Well, in a sense, it is. Set up as a natural history display case, it's a virtuoso sculpture in which Parry conjures up her own vision of a mythological figure. In fact Lilith has a tangled, much disputed mythological pedigree, but for Parry she is a symbolic presence, a pre-lapsarian spirit who dwells in the wild. Drawing on Sumerian sources, Parry embodies her as an owl-woman, perched on a branch. It's a fantastic piece of work, in every sense.

Also see

Sarah O’Flaherty brilliantly evokes life Above and Below ground in her plant sculpture. Sartorio Alonso is similarly mind-expanding with his ingenious wood sculpture The Useful Elm. Jennfier Trouton, Liam Belton, Elizabeth Cope, Nathalie Du Acquire, Maggie Madden, Finial D’Arcy and KK Godsee all show that there is endless scope for inventiveness in works that extend the idea of still life in myriad ways.