In this new body of work by Paul Regan there is a painting called Parade, it seems happy though the reason for this joy is undisclosed. There is a shout of strong, unrestricted colour and the jubilant figures capture you in their frivolous gaze. It gave us a title for this exhibition.

Words that may come before Parade: military, holiday, police, costume, royal, victims, labour, dance, religious, commercial, historical, comical, violent, fairytale. All present.

Regan does not make artist's statements, commentaries or explanations pertaining to the work as a whole, there is no art speak. The titles say all that is necessary about the work. The imagery is familiar, rediscovered, lifted from our collective memory and then grounded; each separate piece in its remoulded individual context. The creative interpretations of the universal subject matter feel strangely personal yet reflect a unique ironic and humorous comment on our media drenched lives.

Titles such as Patrick Duffy, Tears of Blood tug at memories of the empathic, Man from Atlantis or Bobby Ewing, who sheds such honest TV tears from his teddy bear eyes. Another title, If you're not greedy you will go far, refers to a large, pensive and somehow unsettling portrait of an 'Oompa-loompa' man taken from the film 'Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'. What is the relationship between greed and art, for what reason is art a commodity? How much do you love chocolate?

It's easy to read meanings into Parade but for Regan it is very simple. The work, the whole work and nothing but the work, so help me Dog. Always somewhat backward yet somehow familiar. The use of strong graphical imagery, words and objects against a solid single or split colour background creates an advertisement style normality which almost smoothes over the underlying cracks.

Although Regan's primary focus is painting, he also creates sculptures such as Peace Ball Bat, a baseball bat encrusted with metal rugby studs and decorated in the colours of the tribes of Northern Ireland. Other selected objects are also applied to the surface of some of the canvases and create an intriguing marriage in pieces such as Black eyes; the Torch and Disco Inferno.

Born in Dublin in 1970, Regan has been a prolific painter since graduating C.O.M.A.D a decade ago, he has constantly exhibited internationally and has had several solo exhibitions in Ireland. Parade is his first Irish exhibition since 1999, it is the largest body of work that he has produced for one show. In the last few months leading to this exhibition, the work has just kept coming, each the adopted brother/sister of the next. A generation crafted from acute observation of that which usually passes us by. Regan is a grown-up Womble, living quietly underground and making good use of the things that he finds.

Paul Murnaghan.
Artistic Director, 5th.