Kilkenny: Michael Beirne at Butler Gallery

Michael Beirne: Inside out, 2004, oil on canvas, 20 x 14 cm; courtesy Butler Gallery

The latest chapter in the ongoing discussion as to the status of painting includes the grandiose posturing of art speculator and ad man Charles Saatchi with his Triumph of Painting show (in five parts, no less) in the UK and another very different type of event, Michael Beirne's Darling in the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny. Why there is a need to argue the merit of one medium over another, let alone proclaim a winner, is for another discussion; howeverm for a quiet and sophisticated reminder as to the ongoing importance of painting as a most essential mode of expression, this show certainly delivers.

The show teems with extraordinary paintings, jewel-like worlds of webs, dark odysseys of pain and love with an unsettling knowledge of some primordial horror at the core of life. The standout piece in Darling is Untitled (dog/man), which presents a portrait of the artist, who by some strange transformation has evolved the outer appearance of his beloved dog (recently deceased). The portrait floats in a turquoise field unperturbed by a complex network of tiny capillaries branching all around and emerging from his mouth and neck. These works seem to originate from deep in the past but with more than a slight nod to Bosch. In their execution they hold a smile for Frida Kahlo and her fiercely personalised brand of surrealism. In the contemporary arena they suggest something of the achievements of John Currin in their recycling of painterly styles and an easy virtuosity with the medium.

Untitled (long rectangular painting), acquired from the exhibition for the Butler Gallery collection, is another show stopper. A pink landscape floats on nothingness, its trees a maze of ruby veins. A beautifully rendered table holds a new generation of these unsettling saplings. The detail in these works is formidable, from tiny knives scattered among the trees to the strange organisms evolving underground. On investigation all are made up of a riot of tiny delicate brush strokes; from a distance they present a cool and uncanny tableau.

Other works in this carefully installed show include sculptures which, although impressive, seem to step over that difficult line into some other territory, too literal perhaps, too coy in their blend of craft and gore. It is the paintings that deliver that emotional shift that good work can bring, a quickening of the senses. I look forward to seeing more of them.

John Gerrard is an artist based in Dublin.

Michael Beirne: Darling, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, April - June 2005

Article reproduced from CIRCA 113, Autumn 2005, pp. 86-87
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