Freud would

have approved

by Tom Mooney

On view at the Tate Guerin Gallery, nestled in the artisan’s block at Wells House, is Me, Myself and I, a concise exhibition by Jacqueline Nicholson, running until the end of September.

Divided into two rooms, with an installation in the ground floor, the exhibition is best enjoyed as a whole, although the individual exhibits, specifically the ink on paper exploration of the theme – psychoanalytical concepts – demonstrably unveil the artist’s draughts-woman-ship.

Too often the observer of a new collection is preoccupied with the how and the why of the artist’s modus operandi, but theory takes second place to bountiful and comprehensive exertion of movement by Nicholson’s hand, or should that be eye.

She is a very deliberate artist: what you see is what she wanted, and whether you buy into the Freudian essence of the artist’s impulse is inconsequential  if you cannot discern, first,  the originality of her vision and, second, the execution.

Nicholson has said her work is the conscious reworking of unconscious drawings, which mirrors Freuding analysis and the interpretation of dreams, but underscoring the physicality of her marks, like italics gone awry, are gossamer waves of illumination.

The work in the second floor space, lit by an angleic afternoon light, is sensibly priced for an artist of her sentient gift, though I believe you would pay a lot more if the show were in Dublin or London.

If you feel acquiring art is fifty per-cent aesthetic nourishment and fifty per-cent investment, Nicholson should be on your radar for, if she is not now, she will be in the near future.

Though thematically anchored in a psychoanalytical movement born in Vienna, you have to look further to Chinese and Japanese prints for a template of the assured evocation, and patience, Nicholson achieves.