The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe review: Narnia adaptation is a thrilling testament to the wonder of live theatre
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin
★★★★☆
Adam Peck's stage adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe makes key use of an anonymous minor animal character who appears only fleetingly in CS Lewis's book. Now named Schrödinger, for an adult audience's nod-and-wink pleasure, the professor's cat stalks the floorboards in front of the wardrobe, the portal through which the Pevensie siblings disappear into Narnia.
The fluffy feline acts as a visual cue for the dissolution of borders between the parallel worlds, where linear time loses meaning. For the children, however, evacuees during the second World War, time has already been suspended. In Tom Paris's subtly symbolic design, a numberless dial hangs above the stage, the stilled clockwork mechanics of its interior mechanism just visible in the wings.
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How CS Lewis's Irish childhood influenced the Chronicles of Narnia
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This touring production from Michael Fentiman, based on Sally Cookson's original 2017 show, is deeply thoughtful in its approach to staging the classic children's book. Peck's script is as economic as Lewis's novel, moving along at a quick but never hurried pace set by a troupe of travelling musicians who add tone, atmosphere and a few musical numbers to proceedings.
The compositions by Barnaby Race and Benji Bower have an English folk feel that complements the rustic setting of the Pevensies' rural exile, as well as the ritualistic nature of the battle being fought between good and evil.
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The ensemble is fundamental to the execution of every memorable moment. The four leads – Joanna Adaran, Bunmi Osadolor, Jesse Dunbar and Kudzai Mangombe – are very strong, but they are supported throughout by a shape-shifting cast of minor characters, both animal and human.
Styled by Paris with a creative DIY flair, they use billowing bed sheets, glowing globes and suitcases to evoke individual settings and transition between scenes, with Jack Knowles's shadowy lights and Shannelle Fergus's choreography helping Fentiman to maintain an impressive fluidity.
The overall effect is a thrilling testament to the wonder of the live theatrical experience, suspending time on a warm May evening for the 100-minute performance.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is at the
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre
, Dublin, until Saturday, May 10th
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Irish Independent
an hour ago
- Irish Independent
Cork Midsummer Festival set to turn all the city ‘into a stage' in celebration of all things Rebel
Tickets are flying out the door according to the organisers, and they also added that this year's crop of talent has led to one of their busiest box offices in years. Running from June 13 to June 22, Cork city is turned into a stage for a celebration of live arts events that will appeal to each member of the family. Director of the Cork Midsummer Festival Lorraine Maye said the event is 'unique' in so far as it partners with various cultural organisations across the city. 'We work with all the city's cultural organisations, and we work with them to co-present a lot of the work, and a lot of things would not be possible without them. 'We work with a lot of businesses in the city and they become patrons or friends. 'They support us in so many different ways and we literally couldn't do this without them,' Ms Maye said. Whether your Midsummer Festival includes a 4am visit to Cork Opera House, a visit to the dazzling display of the Sun at St Fin Barre's Cathedral or an intimate experience of a musical ensemble at Triskel Arts Centre, there is something for everyone. The opening event will allow spectators to experience the Sun like never before at St Finn Barre's Cathedral. Helios is an invitation to explore the Sun up close through a huge, dazzling new artwork by world-renowned UK artist Luke Jerram. 'The opening event is Helios, a six-metre giant installation of the Sun that's going to be in St Fin Barres for people to see from the 9th of June right until the end of the festival. 'It is a great one for all the family to see and we are thrilled to bring it to Cork. We are co-commissioners of that,' Ms Maye said. Helios can be viewed from June 9. Another major event on the Midsummer Festival calendar is The Second Woman, which is a 24-hour performance and features Eileen Walsh act out the same scene for the duration of the show. 'The extraordinary Eileen Walsh will be the heart of the show and will be on stage for 24 hours performing the same scene over and over again with 100 different participants – all of them men. 'Some of them are actors but most of them are not and haven't been on stage before. 'People can engage with this in a number of different ways like a 24-hour tickets that gives them priority to come and go throughout the 24 hours or they can get a time ticket. 'We really recommend that people see the performance at various times of the day and the night because it's a completely different experience,' Ms Maye added. Throughout the festival, various events showcasing extraordinary Cork talents will be on offer, including the iconic Theatre for One booth. 'We will be using the city as a stage, which is something the festival does every year. 'The iconic Theatre for One booth is custom-made for one audience members and one actor at a time, and this year's theme is Made in Cork,' Ms Maye said. All the writers and actors involved with the Theatre for One are Leesiders, with some of the directors are also Rebels, and Ms Maye said the Theatre for One is a 'brilliant platform to showcase some extraordinary Cork talent.' The closing night will be especially memorable as seven giraffes will make their way down St Patrick's Street – well, kind of. 'For our closing event this year we are partnering with Cork City Council and the Open Streets Initiative for the biggest international spectacle that the city has seen for decades on St Patrick's Street. 'This is a group called Compagnie OFF from France, and their event Les Girafes: An Animal Operetta, will have seven giant giraffes coming down Patrick's Street on the final day of the festival,' Ms Maye concluded. For more information on Cork Midsummer Festival and to buy tickets, see:
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Eileen Walsh: Women actors ‘are like avocados. You're nearly ready, nearly ready - then you're ripe, then you've gone off'
What is the longest period of time you have sat in a venue watching a piece of theatre? Three hours? Four? Maybe six for some rare double or triple bill? Well, from 4pm on Saturday, June 14th to 4pm the following day, actor Eileen Walsh will be spending 24 hours on stage at the Cork Opera House , in a one-off performance of The Second Woman. This is an Irish premiere of the show, running during Cork Midsummer Festival , and a co-production with the Cork Opera House. It was originally created in 2017 by Australians Anna Breckon and Nat Randall, and has been performed in various cities around the world, including Sydney, New York and London. The show is described as 'a durational theatre experience', which sounds about right if you are a member of the audience, but how will the person holding everything together on stage for 24 hours manage to endure in this truly epic role? 'I've done 72 hours in labour,' Walsh says matter-of-factly, as she looks through the lunch menu at Dublin's College Green Hotel. 'You stay awake when you have to.' READ MORE The place is busy and noisy, and there is a particularly loud group sitting in the banquette behind me. As we start talking, I fret a little that my recorder won't pick up Walsh's voice amid the general din of cutlery and lunchtime clamour. But later, when I play back the recording, every word of hers is in there, perfectly clear. Of course it is; it's the voice of an actor, trained to enunciate and carry; to cut through all the noise. Walsh is in an orange singlet and black trouser suit, her dark hair in a ponytail. I know what age she is (48, I've done my research) but if I didn't, I couldn't tell by looking at her enviable chameleon face. The question of age is relevant because this theme is woven through The Second Woman, and her character of Virginia. 'Her age is never mentioned,' Walsh says. 'But it's very much about age and ageing, and about how men see us women.' Walsh has been acting for all of her adult life; in theatre, film and TV. Some of her recent appearances were opposite her old friend Cillian Murphy in the adaptation of Claire Keegan's novella, Small Things Like These ; and in Chris O'Dowd's streaming series Small Town, Big Story . The question is, how is she going to prepare for her latest, and longest, performance? 'I don't know if you can prepare for it, because it is all such an unknown,' she says. 'Part of the preparing for it is a bit like letting go, and trusting in the process. Even if you had done it before, it is an unknown because it would be 100 new situations and 100 new people.' Eileen Walsh: Being a mother is so difficult because you are being constantly pulled. Photograph Nick Bradshaw Walsh will not be alone on stage. Her character Virginia plays the same scene 100 times, each lasting seven minutes, each with a different male character, all called Marty, 100 Martys in total. In Cork, as in other cities where the show has been performed, the Martys are mostly amateurs, with some professionals in the mix. Will there be anyone famous? 'I think there are surprises,' Walsh says cautiously. 'I think it will be a mix of people I have worked with before, and who are interested in the theme of the project. But I don't know, and I won't know until I see them on stage on the night – if there are any. The last thing I want is to spend 24 hours wondering if Liam Neeson is coming.' Or indeed, Cillian Murphy. Or Chris O'Dowd. The core of the lines spoken by each character in each scene stays the same, but the scene itself has the possibility of opening in various different ways. The male character, by improvising, can choose what kind of relationship he wants to have with Virginia. None will have rehearsed with Walsh, so until each scene starts, she will have no idea which back story the person playing opposite her will choose. 'The opening of the scene is a window of opportunity for them to say something along the lines of 'As your brother,' if they don't want any romantic interaction. Or, 'As your dad,' or, 'As your friend.' So they can set their own parameters if they want to. Essentially it is all about relationships.' Stage directions allow for various kinds of action, and little pieces of physical exercise and respite for the actor. 'There's an opportunity to have a dance, there's an opportunity to have a drink, there's an opportunity to sit or to eat. You get an opportunity to sit down briefly, but other than that you are on the go. It's very physical. Then there is an opportunity at the end of each scene for the participant to choose to end the interaction in a positive or negative way. As much as my character is having a monumental breakdown, the men remain main characters in their lives all the time.' Walsh does the scene seven times, with some minutes at the end of each hour to reset the stage again. 'The props might have been moved, the drink might have been spilt. You stay on stage the whole time while that is happening, and then every few hours there's a comfort break, to have a pee, or fix make-up.' In The Second Woman Eileen Walsh plays the same scene 100 times, each lasting seven minutes, each with a different male character, all called Marty, 100 Martys in total. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw When the show was performed in London at the Young Vic in 2023, Walsh queued for three hours to watch a three-hour slot. 'We had to wait for people coming out to be able to buy tickets,' she explains. Walsh had no idea that two years later, she herself would be playing this extraordinary role. How do you rehearse for such a role? 'The rehearsal process is two weeks, and by day two you are working with four actors in turn. They will give me a flavour of what to do if someone freezes on the night, or if they are going on too long.' These actors won't be appearing in the performance; they will be trying to work through some of the different possible variations of the same seven-minute scene. But no element of preparation will come close to replicating what the actual night of performance will bring. Both Breckon and Randall will be coming over to Cork from Australia for the rehearsals, and to see her 24-hour performance. The Second Woman will be Cork-born Walsh's first major stage role in Ireland since returning from Britain last October. She lived there for some 30 years, first with husband Stuart McCaffer, and then as a family with their children, Tippi and Ethel. It's impossible to see acting as a life choice in Ireland now. How do you get a mortgage? Have kids? I don't know how young actors do it — Eileen Walsh 'Tippi is 19 and was born in Edinburgh.' (She's named for Tippi Hedren, now 95, who famously appeared in Hitchcock's The Birds; mother of Melanie Griffith, grandmother of Dakota Johnson.) 'I had watched The Birds, and thought Tippi was such a lovely name,' Walsh says. 'Ethel was born in London and she is 16. The girls were partly responsible for us moving back. Tippi was really interested in coming back and maybe doing drama school here. And we found a lovely school for Ethel. It kind of made sense.' When I ask if her children will be going to see the show, Walsh says her rehearsal time in Cork coincides with Ethel's Junior Cert. She thus won't be available at home for reassuring in-person hugs with her exam student. 'Being a mother is so difficult because you are being constantly pulled.' Tippi and Ethel have a better understanding and tolerance of parents being temporarily absent for work than most of their peers, having been raised in a household with two creative parents (McCaffer is a sculptor). After being away from Ireland for 30 years, both the paucity of available housing and the cost of it was a deep shock to Walsh when they returned. 'Looking for a rental for two adults and two kids, the costs were eye watering. Not only could we not get in the door for a lot of places, but the costs involved in trying to rent a two-bedroom flat while we were looking for a house were crazy. 'The costs are crippling. Dublin is laughing in the face of London when it comes to housing prices.' They did eventually find somewhere. 'We bought a wreck of a house we are desperately trying to do up.' Walsh wonders aloud how actors in Ireland today, especially in Dublin, are managing to develop a professional career while also finding affordable housing. 'I moved out of home at 17 and it was possible to pay your rent – and also have a great time. It is just not possible any more, and I don't know how younger versions of me are coping now. 'Financially it's having the result of turning acting into a middle-class profession, because what young kids from a working class background can afford to hire rehearsal space and to live within Dublin? It's impossible to see acting as a life choice in Ireland now. How do you get a mortgage? Have kids? I don't know how young actors do it. Besides, of course, moving away from Ireland.' Eileen Walsh: 'I moved out of home at 17 and it was possible to pay your rent and also have a great time ... I don't know how younger versions of me are coping now.' Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Back in 1996, when Walsh was still a student, she was cast in the role of Runt opposite Cillian Murphy as Pig in Enda Walsh's seminal then new play, Disco Pigs. (The two Walshes are not related.) The whole thing was a sensational success for all three of them, and burnished their names brightly. When the film version was cast a few years later, Murphy remained in the role of Pig, while Elaine Cassidy was given the role of Runt. Walsh said at the time she didn't even know the auditions were being held. It's a topic that has come up over and over again in interviews during the intervening years, the What If's around that casting. It's clear that Walsh was deeply hurt. She was 'heartbroken' at the decision to not cast her in this role that she had first brought to life. One can only imagine the strain it put on her friendship with Murphy at the time, for a start. It must also have been difficult for Elaine Cassidy to keep hearing publicly how something that was nothing to do with her had so affected the morale of another fellow actor. 'I feel like I've spoken a lot about that,' Walsh says now. 'It was a lesson for me very early on. And it wasn't the first or the last time I got bad news. And just because the role was yours doesn't mean it stays yours. They are heartbreaking things to learn. Or if someone says they want you for a job and then they change their mind, that's a f***ing killer as well. It's not something that gets better with age. It just burns more, because the opportunities are better, so the burn is greater.' [ From the archive: Cillian Murphy and Eileen Walsh on 'Disco Pigs': 'It was the ignorance of youth' Opens in new window ] At this point in our conversation, there are a number of other expletives scattered by Walsh, as if this old and sad wound has triggered some kind of latent, but still important, emotion. We talk for a while about how ageing in the acting profession – wherever one is located in the world – frequently works against women in a way it does not against men. 'I think women are constantly being told that for men, acting is a marathon and for women it's a sprint, because you have a short time to make an impact. You're like an avocado,' she says. I ask her to repeat that last word, unsure if I've heard it correctly. 'Avocado,' she says firmly. 'You're nearly ready, nearly ready – then you're ripe, then you've gone off. That's what you're made to feel like. Do it now, while you're lovely and young and your boobs are still upright, or whatever, While you're taut. And I think that is a total f***ing lie. It might be a marathon for men, but to remain in this business as a woman, it's like a decathlon. You have to f***ing go and go and go and it takes tenaciousness and being stubborn and strident to know your values. 'Men are allowed to feel old and to be seen like a fine wine, whereas I think for women it just takes so much boldness to stay in this profession as you age. And also to play parts where you don't have to always be the f***ing mother or the disappointed wife.' Eileen Walsh as Eileen Furlong in Small Things Like These. Photograph: Enda Bowe In the last year, Walsh has appeared in three significant screen productions: Small Things Like These; Say Nothing , the Disney + adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe's book about the Troubles in Northern Ireland in which she plays Bridie Dolan, the aunt of Dolours and Marian Price who was blinded in a bomb-making accident; and Small Town, Big Story in the role of Catherine, a wheelchair user who is having a steamy affair with a colleague. In Small Things Like These, she co-stars with Oscar-winning Cillian Murphy, three decades on from Disco Pigs. 'A long circle completed,' she says. [ Small Things Like These: Cillian Murphy's performance is fiercely internalised in a film emblematic of a changing Ireland Opens in new window ] Claire Keegan's novella is set in 1985 in Co Wexford, and focuses on what happens when Bill Furlong, a fuel merchant, husband to Eileen Furlong and father of five daughters, discovers what is going on at the local convent, which is also a laundry that serves the town. Murphy – whom she calls Cill – contacted her when she was playing Elizabeth Proctor in Arthur Miller's The Crucible at the National Theatre in London. He asked her to read the script for Small Things, which Enda Walsh had written. 'I know that Cill as producer was very intent on working with people he knows and loves and worked with previously and had kind of relationships with. The whole movie was spotted with friends and long-time collaborators.' After she had read the script, she went to meet director Tim Mielants. She and Murphy 'had to do something similar to a chemistry meet. That meeting was filmed when we worked on some scenes together.' Small Things Like These: Eileen Walsh as Eileen Furlong and Cillian Murphy as Bill Furlong. Photograph: Enda Bowe/Lionsgate The two play the married couple in the movie, Bill and Eileen Furlong. 'It's a very tired relationship. They are a long time into the marriage, and they are very used to each other, so it's a no chemistry-chemistry meet, if that makes sense.' Walsh got the part. I remind her of what she has said earlier in the interview about being fed up of playing roles of mothers and disappointed wives, which one could see as a fair description of her role of Eileen Furlong. This role, Walsh makes clear, was very different from any kind of generic cliche of playing a mother or wife. 'Playing Eileen, she wasn't a put-upon wife, but was a mirror of what an awful lot of women were like at that time in Ireland. [ Irish Times readers pick Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These as the best Irish book of the 21st century Opens in new window ] 'Claire Keegan's writing is such a gift to any actor. Claire's story behind everybody is very dark. Nobody gets an easy ride with a Claire Keegan character, and that's a real draw to any actor. She doesn't soft soap anything. For me to play that character, to play Eileen, meant I saw so much of my own mother and the women that I grew up underneath, [women] I grew up looking up to. It was a hard time. They were trying to make money stretch very hard, at a time when dinners would have to be simple and very much planned to the last slice of bread. They were not women spouting rainbows.' As it happens, Walsh's next big upcoming role after the Cork Midsummer Festival will be that of Jocasta, Oedipus's mother, in Marina Carr's new play, The Boy. It will open at the Abbey in the autumn as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. She'll play a mother in this interpretation of a Greek myth, certainly, but again, no ordinary one. Rehearsals start in July. [ From the archive: Eileen Walsh: How I reconcile motherhood with playing Medea Opens in new window ] Meanwhile, back to her modern-day Greek marathon in Cork this month. Due to the length of the show, there are a variety of ticket types the public can avail of. You can buy a ticket for the entire 24 hours, and either stay at the venue for the whole time or leave and return. On return, you may have to queue again and wait for a seat to become free. Other tickets are being sold for scheduled time slots for a number of hours. If you choose to come for the 2am slot, for instance, you'll pay a bit less for your ticket. There will also be some tickets available at the door, although it's likely you'll have to queue. There will be pop-up food and drink venues in the foyer to provide sustenance. The Cork Opera House has a capacity of 1,000 seats. If those seats keep turning over a during the 24 hours, thousands of people will have an opportunity to see this remarkable highlight of Cork Midsummer Festival: truly a night like no other this year in Ireland.
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
12 must-see artworks at the RHA Annual Exhibition 2025
It is the largest and longest-running open-submission exhibition in Ireland, and the 195th RHA Annual features 422 pieces by academicians and artists old and new. It will also be the final Annual for Patrick Murphy, who retires as director of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts at the end of 2025. He took up the role in 1998, since when the RHA has regained its relevance in the Irish art infrastructure, revamped its Ely Place headquarters, elected its first woman president, revised its charter and celebrated its 200th anniversary. [ From surviving dissent and debt to celebrating artists: The Royal Hibernian Academy at 200 Opens in new window ] The RHA Annual Exhibition itself is selected by a committee of artists. Their choices, this year from 4,565 submissions, are made anonymously, and are exhibited alongside pieces from RHA members, plus 11 invited artists. Despite not including performance or site-specific works, the RHA Annual is often said to offer a snapshot of the state of art-making today. So with all that going on, where do you start? We pick 12 works on which to feast your eyes. READ MORE Abigail O'Brien: Susanna and the Elders I & II 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: Susanna and the Elders I, by Abigail O'Brien. Photograph courtesy of the artist 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: Susanna and the Elders II, by Abigail O'Brien. Photograph courtesy of the artist Coming from the Bible's Book of Daniel, the story of Susanna and the Elders has been a pervy staple in art history, as two fully clothed men stare lustfully at the semi-naked Susanna. Rubens had a go, but it took Artemisia Gentileschi to give a sense of how Susanna herself might have felt, when she painted it, in multiple versions, in the 1600s. Abigail O'Brien's large-scale photographs show a female display mannequin perched on a chair in a junk or antique shop from a pair of angles. More or less naked ('she' is wearing a hat and necklace), the images show the ludicrous proportions that have been manufactured to characterise female 'beauty'. While the setting may hopefully imply how outdated these standards are, the images also underline the continuing objectification of women, in commerce as well as in art. O'Brien is the RHA's first woman president in its 200-plus-year history; her preface to the exhibition catalogue sets out the gender inequalities that women artists still face. Despite greater parity in representation in the Annual, their work is still consistently undervalued, including by the artists themselves. Institutional inequalities also persist in our public collections. That said, we may be doing better than they are in Britain. O'Brien notes that the UK Royal Academy of Arts, in London, has been going for more than 250 years, yet only held its first solo show by a woman artist in its main galleries in 2024. As she writes: 'most of all, we need to keep talking about it.' Caoimhe McGuckin: Wellspring 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: Wellspring, by Caoimhe McGuckin. Photograph courtesy of the artist While The Fall, a large architectural pavilion by Ben Mullen, Peter Maybury and Tom de Paor, initially grabs the attention as it eats up a large chunk of the upper main gallery, there are some very powerful smaller sculptural gems to savour. Áine Ryan's 'Go Make the Tea' He Said is a delicate pâte-de-verre trio of sculptures on a silver tray. What at first appear to be little biscuits are instead a pair of breasts. Serving up subversion with every sip? Alongside this, Caoimhe McGuckin's Wellspring is a cast-wax model of the human heart. Instead of aorta there are stubs of bright red crayons. It may bring to mind an idea of human creativity beginning at childhood, but it's also worth realising that the sculpture very strongly resembles a grenade. Elaine Byrne: Losing All Sense of Time 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: Losing All Sense of Time, by Elaine Byrne. Photograph courtesy of the artist Elaine Byrne's sybaritic image of a swimming pool is photographed in vivid colour, as tanned families and loving couples disport themselves on fake rocks. So far so very escapist. But the pool is built out over the sea, which threatens to engulf the bathers on one side. Suddenly the thin fencing seems ludicrously fragile – as ludicrous, perhaps, as building a swimming pool at the edge of the ocean. While frequently beautiful, Byrne's work tends to have a political edge, so look closer still and see that the sea is a totally different hue of blue, and the real rocks edging into the picture are different again from their created cousins next door. The idea of sunbathing at the end of the world calls to mind Sun & Sea, the opera performance that came to Cork Midsummer in 2023, after winning the Golden Lion for Lithuania at the Venice Biennale in 2019. Bernadette Kiely: No Promised Land 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: No Promised Land, by Bernadette Kiely. Courtesy of the artist A highly accomplished painter, Bernadette Kiely has been increasingly focusing her subtle eye on the climate crisis . Her arresting oil painting No Promised Land seems as if it is literally saturated, as a bright-red delivery truck is swamped in the midst of a flooded plain. Conjuring all the nuances of greens and greys, and with a brilliant eye for composition, Kiely shows how easily our landscapes, and our sense of safety, can be obliterated by the power of natural forces. We can just make out roads, hedges and the tops of trees, but if we don't do something soon, the future could become a highly inhospitable place – even in Ireland's gentle fields. Ally Nolan: The Men/Na Fir 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: The Men/Na Fir, by Ally Nolan. Courtesy of the artist You'll need to go to the passage behind the RHA's reception desk to find this large mixed-media panel. Based on Thomas H Mason's photograph Four Aran Men, Inis Meáin, from the National Museum of Ireland , the artist has layered digitally printed organza, linen, wool and appliqué, complete with hand-woven embroidery. Nolan is an award-winning fashion graduate with a master's in art history, a background that tells in this richly complex work that brings the original black-and-white print to life. It shows the vibrancy of the layers of knowledge embedded in the legacies of craft, while underlining the craft embodied in some of today's technologies. Ronnie Hughes: Chromatic II 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: Chromatic II, by Ronnie Hughes. Courtesy of the artist There is a joyful exuberance at this year's Annual not seen since before the Covid pandemic. This is not to say that artists are ignoring the panoply of problems the world is facing, but there is nonetheless a burst of colour, in painting particularly. A cluster of canvases in one of the upper galleries includes Tom Climent's Contour Lines, John Fitzsimons's Generation and Ann Marie Webb's Back Light. Chromatic II, by Ronnie Hughes, shows how the simple-seeming geometries of colour and line can make the eyes and mind dance. With none of the frenetic, brain-melting energies of full-on op-art, this work gets behind and beyond language to celebrate the power of colour in all its abstract glories. Cathal Carolan: Censored 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: Censored, by Cathal Carolan. Courtesy of the artist In the Annual hang, the RHA's atrium is reserved for highly wantable small works, and this year there are plenty to shine. Conor Horgan's photograph of pinked-up oyster mushrooms comes from his Disco Vegetables series, Stephanie Rowe's Auction II captures a moment of intensity in jewel-like form, while Tara O'Reilly's Night Worker is a standout of a small portrait. Within this group Cathal Carolan's Censored continues to draw the eye. A headscarved woman is seated on a bus or train, looking away from the camera, her eye line bisected by a window panel. While this anonymising gesture is powerful in itself, what makes the work unforgettable is that this woman, out of context and perhaps even out of her home country, has all the qualities of posture and light of a Vermeer. Value and worth are curious notions, dependent entirely on the arbitrary whims of place and time. Pauline Rowan: Awake, Between the Gates 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: Awake, Between the Gates, by Pauline Rowan. Courtesy of the artist There's a vast novel of story in this photograph. A baby sleeps while what we presume is its mother lies awake. It could be a moment in any new parent's life, yet the pair are on a mattress on a floor, the rumpled sheet not quite tucked in. Quietly heartbreaking, the image catches at homelessness, dispossession, determination and love. The work was actually made when Rowan moved with her newborn daughter to live in a house on grounds open to the public. When the work was shown at Photo Museum Ireland at the beginning of this year, the artist recalled that tourists would stand and look through the windows. Adding biographical narrative to understanding a work of art can sometimes expand but often limits it. You don't need to know the backstory to find this an unforgettable image. Agata Stoinska: Reverberations 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: Reverberations, by Agata Stoinska. Courtesy of the artist Many artists have their eyes on nature in this year's Annual. Martin Gale imagines a return of wolves in a pair of paintings, while Tony G Murray's duo of Silent Forest prints leads you to imagine where myths of tree creatures may have come from. In this vein, Agata Stoinska's large-scale forest photograph brings you right to the heart of the emergence of legend, with a clever doubling device that manages to avoid becoming glib. Instead the mirrored trees create a portal, and everything is calling you to want to walk through. Rae Perry: Resolutions 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: Resolutions, by Rae Perry. Courtesy of the artist The US-born, Dublin-based artist Rae Perry is largely self-taught, but her time in Florence, where she studied drawing, shows in her use of light and in the soft and rich Florence-school-inspired hues of her canvas. Nicely enigmatic, Resolutions is also tender and intimate. Amid the portraits crowding the exhibition – from Robert Ballagh's La Républicaine, to Emma Stroude's trio in An Acorn or the Sky, to the Portrait of Tony Strickland by Neil Shawcross – Resolutions stands out, quietly. Michael Wann: City Limits (Those Trees Will Have to Go) 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: City Limits (Those Trees Will Have to Go), by Michael Wann. Courtesy of the artist Adding a hint of red to his more usual shades of charcoal grey, Michael Wann gets away from the delicacies of trees, rural byways and rustic ruins with another way of looking at nature. Here the artist has collaged paper over canvas to lay out what looks like a much-folded cityscape – perhaps, in this imaginary world, looted from a planner's office somewhere, or salvaged from the chaos of some postapocalyptic future. [ Dorothy Cross: 'I don't think art is about talent really. It's about a route you take' Opens in new window ] Tower blocks reach for the leaden skies, while lower-rise civic buildings, and what might be edge-of-town sports or education complexes, come forward to meet the eye. As the city creeps beyond its limits, an area of vegetation is marked for destruction, reminding us of the Australian writer Tim Winton's comment that 'architecture is what we console ourselves with once we've obliterated our natural landscapes'. Vera Klute: Lustre II 195th RHA Annual Exhibition: Lustre II, by Vera Klute. Courtesy of the artist Extraordinarily versatile, Vera Klute is a renowned portrait artist. Her oil painting Slope, also in the exhibition, is a lush jungle of a canvas delving into the infinite varieties of our often overlooked riverbanks. Before you get to that, however, you'll have met her Lustre II, a marvellous sculpture in the RHA foyer that, depending on your perspective, imagination and predilections, could be a strange alien craft, a giant fuchsia or something slightly sexual. And that's the glories of art in a nutshell. The 195th RHA Annual Exhibition in association with McCann FitzGerald is at the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts , in Dublin, until August 3rd
