ALICE MAHER @ GREEN ON RED

Ok I figure ur supposed to have an opinion on this exhibition. First time I've ever seen another person in this gallery while I was there, and there was like six. And its been on a while. tbh I never really got what was supposed to make this chick any better than the girls I used to see copping her moves at art-school and I don't know if this show is gonna be the one to change my mind.

First off this seemed okay. There were framed prints made from the animations which comprise the main bulk of the exhibition. I wondered about how they left in the rubbed out bits somehow. I wish I knew more abt printmaking processes sometimes.

So Alice Maher's schtick is like this queasy dissection of the body and she's obsessed with hair, but beyond that, I really didn't know what I was meant to extrapolate from this exhibition. When William Kentridge does the one page animation thing, its abt histories that can't be erased maybe, when Maher does it she just seems to be exploiting its inherent visual seductiveness. Bodies morph, mutate, merge and disolve, turning into bees and balls of hair and the sound is close mic-ed and uncomfortable in its detail. There's a level of skill in the drawing (even if her faces are a bit awkward and junior-cert-ey at times) but there's not a whole lot of um variation in how she makes the mutations happen. Like, you won't be mad at yourself for trekking out to see this, but I doubt you'll be that into it either, but then what do I know.

on now etc.

Fergus Feehily is now on at Douglas Hyde, I am a huge fan and this should be pretty awesome, show is called Pavillion.

Kathy Predergast is currently showing at the Kerlin Gallery, show is called The Grey before Dawn.

Niamh O'Malley is on at the Green on Red showing a new video piece.

Bridget Flannery is showing at the Cross Gallery and it looks pretty worth checking out.

Paul Nugent at Kevin Kavanagh

Don't really understand what the exhibition happening at Pallas Projects is but it looks intriguing

Black Mariah is still showing my old tutor Mark O'Kelly

Also, I am graduating in a couple days so i'll have the skinny on this Noughties but Nice expo in the limerick city gallery.

PETER O'KENNEDY @ G126

Gah, two things i've been meaning to do for quite some time, the first one is update my blog, the second to write about G126 who are basically burning the torch for forward-looking and innovative exhibitions in Galway. Over the summer they opened a new premises in the city centre and quietly hosted a season of inventive and quirky shows by international artists. Still, this is a good month in which to comment their good work because current exhibition by Irish born artist Peter O'Kennedy showcases the venue's commitment to ambitious exhibitions by emerging artists.

The exhibition entitled Skip Roll Bump scratch is dominated by two large sculptures assembled from piping, and bits of machinery and the ambience of several sound pieces. One of those sound pieces, hissing radio transmissions, emerges from a large gramaphone speaker connected to a complicated web of piping, a stark black three dimensional drawing which dominates the centre of the small room. It feels imposing yet calmly self contained. The actual source of the sound itself is mysterious, as though the web of pipes were just a small piece of a vast constellation of interconnecting conduits.

The other piece which dominates the show, smothered by a large sheet of polythene is another large sculpture, this time seemingly assembled from parts of electronic machinery, and resembling the front of a lorry, albeit obscured by the aforementioned plastic. There is something anthropomorphically cruel about the cable ties that affix the plastic to the hulking structure which lends the room a troubling air of displaced menace.

The prints on the wall, largely photographic prints on aluminium, flesh out the artist's concerns, and kind of renegotiation of Futurism that takes on a dry immediacy as though washing off the romance of 70 or so odd years of supermensche boners and Throbbing Gristle post apocalyphta. The work seems almost fetishistically drawn to the boringness off the subject, casting aside all the sinister machinations of the glory of machinery and arriving at a language that is both immediate and casual. Pretty cool.