A hint of the sublime: the best in this week’s art shows

 West meets East II

Anne Korff. KAVA (Kinvara Area Visual Arts), The Courthouse, Kinvara, Co Galway. Until April 8th kava.ie Distilled from travels in North Africa, Andalucía and southeast Turkey, Korff’s paintings explore a language of symbols and motifs that, she suggests, occur across Christian and Islamic art and imply common ancient origins. Korff’s expertise and interests extend to archaeology and she established a publishing company, Tir Eolas, in 1987, issuing her own maps of the Burren and other locations.

Western Way

Norman Ackroyd, Stephen Lawlor and Amelia Stein. The Green Fuse Gallery, The Octagon, Upper James St, Westport, Co Mayo greenfuse.ie Three perspectives on the western seaboard, including Norman Ackroyd’s virtuoso works on paper, Amelia Stein’s black-and-white photographs and Stephen Lawlor’s visionary print-works with a hint of the sublime about them.

Mass Paths

Caitríona Dunnett. Custom House Studios and Gallery, The Quay, Westport, Co Mayo. Until April 15th customhousestudios.ie The Penal Laws were imposed in Ireland in 1695, forcing the Catholic Church into secrecy. Catríona Dunnett has devoted a great deal of time to researching mass paths – the countryside paths walked by Catholics to attend illegal masses. Her photographs, in one of two shows at Custom House, document the traces of those paths in the contemporary landscape. She makes contact negative from digital images, creating and toning cyanotypes.

Archive: Margo McNulty and The Great Heap: Fiona Kelly

Luan Gallery, Grace Road, Athlone. Until May 23rd athloneartsandtourism.ie/ For Margo McNulty, whose print and occasional video works address lost and hidden histories and the strangeness of memory, the act of revisiting a place and giving it form in images can “animate the past”. She is subtle, patient and eloquent in her approach. Fiona Kelly is interested in the ecological potential of recycling and revivifying the byproducts of the anthropocene, materials and stuff that has been cast aside.

Turner nominee tuned to video

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Robert Doisneau: the humanist photographer who loved Paris

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Art in Focus: Frank Bowling – Australia to Africa, 1971

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Joseph Keating

New Work. The Lavit Gallery, 5 Father Mathew St, Cork. Until April 28th Keating was born in Cahersiveen and emigrated to the US in the 1980s. When he returned to Ireland in 2009 he studied art at the Crawford College in Cork. In his work, he says, his underlying preoccupations relate to the experiences of displacement, migration, belonging and not belonging. His paintings incorporate sculptural elements and mixed media.