Paul White - winner of the Cork Arts Society Student of the Year Award - joins such renowned artists as Eilis O'Connell, Vivienne Roche and James Scanlon. All have been selected from students at the Crawford College of Art and Design and the award is rightly regarded as an important stepping-stone to building a career as an artist.
The 33 paintings showing at the Lavit Gallery comprise highlights from White's diploma work at CCAD, the selection illustrating the flexible approach taken toward his chosen subject matter. Primarily this is portraiture and in the most formal of these, the artist shows himself to be an accomplished painter.
In Upsetting Kieran, for example, the frowning chiaroscuro-enshrouded visage is painted with a surety and naturalism that edges very close to photo-realism.
White also shows a strong predilection for narrative subtexts. But as well as the thematisation of his subject, he is also attuned to exploring alternative surface treatments. This culminates in the two sumptuous Diver paintings, where potential for abstraction is indulged as the figure becomes distorted within a swirl of underwater turbulence.
Runs until August 19th