This exhibition of paintings – both originals and prints – by Rebecca Carroll has a poem by Mary Kennelly accompanying each picture.

Texture and colour are the dominant visual element of Rebecca Carroll‘s paintings. Her work lends itself to a series of tags from abstract through impressionist and expressionist to realistic.

Carroll does not impose a particular interpretation but it always stimulates a curiosity that offers a point of access. While she is inspired by nature and spirituality the interpertation is left to the viewer.

For instance they inspire Mary Kennelly to write about the interpersonal‚ about relationships and emotions. Her light from Rebecca‘s paintings leads the reader/listener along her own very unique path.

Carroll‘s ‘Embryonic Atolls‘ might suggest the birth of an idyllic new world that‚ in the context of recent awful happenings‚ great good and beauty also comes from under the sea. For Kennelly the painting evoked ‘Red Dreams‘ ‘Unbidden‚ her feet began to move‚/Hips answering an impulse as old as time itself.‘

While ‘Father‘s Journey‘ might suggest the birth of a new‚ richly textured‚ heavenly body – among our endlessely fascinating heavenly bodies – for artist and poet it is at the other end of life. Mary calls her poem ‘Liberation‘ ‘Though body failed him day by day‚/Still spirit soared in flight.‘

‘Regatta 3‘ shows something of the awful ferocity of the elements. In ‘Gale Force‘ mother and son watch ‘The grey Atlantic bare white teeth/And rage against the whipping wind.‘

Rebecca Carroll‘s ‘Soil Search‘ shows a tree with its roots reaching deep into the earth – perhaps tree and soil bent and twisted by years and weathering. In Mary Kennelly‘s poem tree and earth become man and woman ‘I hide from everybody else – my darker‚ wilder‚ pagan parts.‘

Is ‘Irradiating‘ a new place evolving for a wild turbulence of molten matter. In complete contrast Kennelly writes in ‘Love Story‘ ‘This loves runs through little seams‚/folding clothes and sweeping floors./Passion in a thousand tender acts.‘ ‘World–Mothering Air‘ might suggest a primeval relationship between woman and heavenly body. This becomes a much more personal ‘Covenant‘ ‘I feel you move and of its own accord/My hand flies down to cradle you.‘

- Frank Lewis