Painting after the weather

Harbour Light opened at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios in a week of rain. That felt correct. Maeve Cullen’s recent paintings are not pictures of weather so much as records of having stayed with it — the mix going cold, the grey shifting while the brush is still loaded.

What the room is for

A mid-career presentation in a city-centre gallery can flatten a practice into a greatest-hits corridor. The better job is slower: hang the work so a visitor has to look as long as the painter mixed. Cullen’s small panels help. They refuse the sweep of a harbour view and ask for kitchen-window time.

The scrape is not a style. It is the only honest record of having been there in weather, not in a photograph.

I organised this hanging with that in mind. Admission is free. Stay until the grey changes.