Review In The Munster Express
Friday July 29, 2011
Liam Murphy

With a title like A Different View, the exhibition in the picturesque Joan Clancy Gallery in Ring, Co Waterford by young (early 20’s) Dungarvan artist, Sinead Hehir, sets down a challenge to the viewer. The work is striking and brash, the way this award-winning artist uses red and orange and slabs of both colours add a vitality as Hehir seems to say, “Look! See how I see the familiar places and landscape!”

She uses colour in a wild and wonderful way to draw the viewer into her vision. I kept looking for images within the images and when I thought I detected a hare like a private name-check in a landscape I couldn’t stop imagining there were hares, an ogre and other creatures. In one plight of fancy I was sure I could make out a girl dressed in red lying in a field next to a Santa figure. Admiring The View in its brashness had effect on me.

Then in the powerful O’er The Hill I was convinced I could see a submerged body or at least a head under the water. Hehir handles water well with a clear sense of constant movement, contrasting with a liquid stillness. The title painting has such an image of a boy/man with a satchel sitting beside a still pool with two mini waterfalls dropping into its silent depths.

Not only that, but her use of green shades sticking out from the canvas gives a reality to lichen and foliage.

I like the muted grey tones of As You Go, with water running down a hill beside a dark track or road. Likewise, the contrast in Temperamental has a green tranquillity with a storm darkening like the sea, but overhead.

Sinead Hehir : A Different View until July 29.
Summer Group Show: Aug 9 – 16, 11am – 5pm daily including weekends.