Fionnuala Ni Chiosain's latest show features a range of work made by the artist since 1993 and includes several of the kind of sinuous, abstract watercolours with which she is usually associated, alongside a collection of less familiar figurative monochromes in ink. In earlier work, Ni Chiosain often appeared intensely reserved in her use of colour, allowing her wash-based technique to eliminate its sharper effects. Now she seems less wary, and her work consequently has a new and often startling energy. One image seems central: dominating the gallery space is a large blue painting, created, like several other pieces in the show, by fixing a watercolour image to a sheet of dibond. In lieu of the ranks of seeping rivulets that usually render the artist's work instantly recognisable, a pale skeletal cruciform delicately breaks the dense blue surface.
A series of resonant colour works are arranged in rhythmic patterns with the monochrome works often faded outlines of children or of figures at play, so that small figurative images sit flush against the artist's abstract works. The effect of juxtaposing these two very different bodies of work is to give a sense of freedom that the artist's single-minded pursuit of one idea has sometimes denied. The quantity of work involved in producing Ni Chiosain's images has always seemed to play rather too important a part in what emerged. This was not simply because the paintings used effects which could only be produced slowly and laboriously, but also because the process brought about images of determination, rather than excitement. The images in Ni Chiosain's latest collection, while never seeming less than hard-won, maintain an intensity and a sense of focus that speaks of a significant breakthrough for the artist.
Runs until April 27th.