These energetic paintings caught my eye on Cork Street. I was captivated by the bold geometric abstraction tempered by the occasional expressionistic brushstroke and drip/spatter of paint to soften the hard edges. They were reminiscent of the work of American Abstract Expressionism by the likes of Robert Motherwell and Franz Kline. These paintings at Flowers gallery are the work though of Liza Giles whose paintings I had never previously encountered. I immediately picked up on her strong visual language of blocks of shapes and semi-circles resembling lobster claws. Another aspect of Giles' work I was drawn to was the collage-like nature of the compositions. The canvases are triptychs and quadiptychs, but look as though they have been cut and pasted together. Unsurprisingly I discovered the canvases evolve from smaller preparatory collages which Giles paints and then cuts up, rearranging the pieces until she is happy enough with a particular composition to develop them into a painting. Being an artist who works in collage myself I was eager to inspect the smaller collages, but sadly they were mounted in the gallery's administration space off limits to the public, so I was unable to examine them at close quarters. This was a real shame as these smaller preparatory works looked just as interesting as the large canvases. Further investigation into Giles's oeuvre is needed.
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