Mermaid Arts Centre, Main St, Bray, Co Wicklow mermaidartscentre.ie

Cecily Brennan has worked in many media, including painting, various forms of graphics and three-dimensional materials. At the edge of the skin, however, is the first survey exhibition that looks specifically at her work in video, which now amounts to a substantial proportion of her output. The trajectory of her development as an artist takes her closer and closer to the subject of individual tension and trauma and its at times painfully direct visualisation. While evident in other media, as in her iconic, stainless steel Bandaged Heartfrom 2001 and her tempera paintings of damaged bodies in Heat, the theme is most explicitly addressed in her videos. They have tended to move from the abstract manipulation of materials in a quasi-scientific idiom to the naked vulnerability of the human body and the human psyche in a series of stark, performative pieces including Unstrung, Balancing, Rubber Band, Melancholiaand the startling Black Tears.

Strong, often disturbing stuff.

Can’t See That? Catch This

Cara Thorpe, Cross Gallery, Francis Street, Dublin Until March 5