Review: M16 is showing the impressive Incandescence, Entwine and No.52

Incandescence shows the work of the 13 artists and facilitator (Jodie Cunningham) who comprise the Lime Flaming Collective. The overarching titular theme of "incandescence" sees "...the artists give physical form to memories, dreams and experiences: the glow of our inner world, the traces left from the emotional states within: - the co-existence of light and dark; and the temporal process of perception and renegotiation of identities". Such a portentous exhibition rationale is quite an ask, and within the 108 works on display connections to the "theme" are simultaneously varied, obtuse, elastic and hidden.

Some artists have provided texts to accompany their works. These should not be necessary and for me underscore the obfuscatory exhortations of the exhibition's blurb. What is presented is a diversity of styles, visual languages and media (collage, assemblage, watercolour, mixed media, painting, digital prints, sculpture) that point to each artist's individual creative persona rather than to an overall expression of the flowery rationale. The theme does not visually unify this exhibition and perhaps a unifying character was not what was required of the "Collective" ?

As an exhibition presenting the work of 14 very different artists we are given 14 different artistic expressions searching for a theme. Unity here is achieved through a very handsome presentation. The works of each of the artists are given sufficient space for proper viewer consideration. The individual groupings are visually coherent and there is a rhythmical ambience to the exhibition that is very attractive. While there is substantial variation in aesthetic resolution the selection within each group of work and the display of this, allows each artist to have their imaginative creations stand for themselves.

In Gallery 2, Helen Gory's Entwine presents 80 collages accompanied by 80 gold squares (the latter assembled separately in 2 lots, one of 64 pieces, the other of 16). The collages are arranged in strict linear fashion on three of the gallery walls. The gold squares occupy the end wall (64 squares) and the wall immediately adjacent to it on the left (16 squares). The collages acknowledge that medium's history and in particular their origin in the Dada and Surrealist movements of the early 20th-Century.

The linear arrangement of the work and the size of each (21 centimetres by 15 centimetres) invites a narrative reading of the exhibition. The overall effect is a form of epistolary dialogue in which each image was a sentence in the narrative as posited by the artist. While there is a connectedness across the exhibition each collage maintains its identity as individual vignette, reinforced by the insertion of a title under each image. The titles are important, often witty pointers or clues to "reading" the meanings variously covertly or overtly conveyed in the visuals the texts/titles accompany. The images themselves (mostly black and white) have a vintage look and cover a significant variety of subjects including Classical statuary, Egyptian art, Cycladic art, tribal art, the human body, art history and images of news events from recent history. There is an energy infused into each image, perhaps engendered in the speed in which the artist assembles each collage. This is underscored in the longitudinal layout of the work. The internal combinations - a Renaissance portrait with a photographic image of clicking fingers for example - are ostensibly confusing and contradictory. They however expose the artist's underlying theme of the disconnectedness that has permeated human relationships in the last few years. The golden blocks offer not only visual caesurae but also spaces for emotional and intellectual solace. This is a cleverly conceived and seductively achieved exhibition that deserves to be seen.

In Gallery 3, Brenton McGeachie's photographs capture the beauty that can be found in places of urban neglect and in places otherwise ignored. McGeachie's control of light and understanding of formal composition is powerfully demonstrated in his coloured interiors of deserted properties and in his black and white panoramas of the waste lands of suburbia.