“Now This Could Be a Psychological Situation,’’ for instance, reads like a New Yorker cartoon: A fierce, colorful fish opens its enormous mouth and a procession of smaller fish swim right into the maw. The small fish in front represents the sentiment in the understated title. Ridiculous and funny, it reveals Donleavy’s clever sense of color and composition.
Fanged beasts appear as a comic, neurotic touchstone throughout the show. They jangle with color, attenuated lines, and a self-conscious nerviness that turns nightmarish scenes into cartoons. “Me Be Beast Who Cries in the Wilderness’’ shows a striped cat. Its sad blue eyes, turned up toward a sliver of moon, give the scenario a poignancy.
Also on view: voluptuous nudes drawn with a loaded, wet brush (“Without Hope for Tiny Hands’’ features a woman with her hands behind her back), and portraits that rely on an economy of line. “John Lennon’’ is a lovely evocation of a figure so familiar he’s hard to capture without being trite. Donleavy gives us Lennon’s round glasses, nose, and mouth in ink, but other contours are described in quiet breaths of tone that make concentric rings around his face.
Now in his 80s, Donleavy lives in Ireland. His acclaim as a writer has garnered attention for his art. These works are fun, but they are clearly just the doodles of an artist capable of more.
Sculptors inside out
Murray Dewart’s sculptures do not belong in a gallery. Resembling portals, gates, and altars, they would best be viewed in nature, preferably stumbled upon during a ramble through the forest. But they’re on exhibit now at Boston Sculptors Gallery, where you can sense their quiet majesty, even if the environment is all wrong. Gathering too many sacred sites in one room can titrate the effect.
