AT the outset, the prospect of a painter who has spent a much of his recent time in the close observation of bog pools is not an enticing one. With the latest show of paintings by Sean McSweeney, however, this self consciously rustic starting point leads to an extraordinary variety of images. McSweeney may begin by contemplating patches of wetland, but more often than not what appears on the wall are vivid harmonies of colour spinning in wild abstracted activity. He has no reticence about manipulating the perspective of his compositions, tilting their forms until landscapes appear to be viewed from an aeroplane.

This tactic allows McSweeney to convert his bogs into a series of tough spaces in which hypnotic colour and pattern are given full rein. Despite their west of Ireland settings, more than one picture seems to have more in common with the charged spaces of Mark Rothko than with Paul Henry.

In Wetland, for example, McSweeney offers a dark whirlpool threaded with blazing meteoric darts of white and yellow, while in Summer Bog/and a speckled solar flare is edged in vivid ultramarine. In First Cut a vibrant yellow oblong seems to hover over the dark border, suspended in a tense, striated blue grasp.

The show also includes images in which McSweeney has opted for the subtler effects of a muddy palette, and even one in which architecture begins to impinge on the landscape. Nowhere, however, is there anything to discourage the impression of an artist of rare and consistent strength.