Ann Knickerbocker writes about painting that borrows from the traditions of observation and abstraction. She looks at the work of two painters, Keith Wilson, whose work is on view at Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin (through October 25) and Donald Teskey whose exhibition Nature Reserve was recently on view at Town Hall Gallery, Macroom, Co., Cork.

Knickerbocker notes "that representative painters form reference points that outline recognizable things, but these realists can not produce the things themselves; instead, they have perfected linear description. Abstract artists produce something that, in itself, stops our usual referring back to an 'other' object or state of feeling. Abstraction is meant to arrest our attention in the moment, as our attention would be held as we fall into extreme joy or sorrow. Painting at this moment in our history often seems confused, torn between the two approaches, neither of which is wholly adequate. It may be that the best of current art must bridge these two methods of perceiving and creating: the outline of the familiar combined with a more abstract grasp of feeling."