Influenced by Robert Flaherty’s 1934 film Man of Aran, artist Elizabeth Rivers travelled from London to the Aran Islands off the West of Ireland, where she immersed herself in the Irish language and culture. Ahead of a symposium in June on Rivers, MARY STRATTON RYAN looks at the artist’s life and the work she produced on Inishmore. Though the two artists are a generation apart, SARAH KELLEHER finds common concerns in the work of Camille Souter and Alberta Whittle, whose joint exhibition is on view at the Irish Museum of Modern Art; MARIANNE O’KANE BOAL visits The Model in Sligo, where abstract artist Tinka Bechert ‘blends European and Irish methodologies’; and, though she is better known as one half of the writing duo Somerville and Ross, Edith Somerville’s earliest ambition was to be a painter, as MICHAEL WALDRON reveals. PETER PEARSON surveys a Norman tower house, Barryscourt Castle in Co Cork. Its restoration was spearheaded by the Barryscourt Trust in the 1980s, subsequently taken on by the state and sensitively completed by the Office of Public Works; Nigel Rolfe presents a suite of photographs, some hand painted, others with the addition of text and cloth, in which STEPHANIE McBRIDE finds echoes of spirituality; and JOHN RAINEY relates how Blaine O’Donnell’s sculptural practice engages with technology, architecture and geology. SEÁN KISSANE looks at the work of Pakistan-born doctor-turned-artist Samir Mahmood, whose practice is informed by Indo-Persian miniature painting; HELEN PURSER highlights a recent practitioner of shell art, Beatrice Somerville-Large, whose pictures featured clam, razor, cockle and cowrie shells; and artist Gwen O’Dowd tells AIDAN DUNNE, ‘It’s important to say that I don’t see myself as a landscape painter as such, though I know I’m often described that way.’ Elsewhere in the issue, there’s FRANCIS HALSALL on Paul McKinley and DOMINIC THORPE on Diana Chambers’ paintings, which exude ‘a palpable joy for art-making’; PATRICK BOWE outlines how 19th-century tourism to the Burren and the Aran Islands helped promote rock gardens; and MARIE BOURKE details the artistic output of County Clare-born Francis Bindon, a successful portrait painter and gentleman architect. Usual features include the Diary of Events by KATHRYN MILLIGAN, Art at Auction by JOHN P O’SULLIVAN and Design Portfolio by FRANCES McDONALD. And finally, Oliver Murphy’s painting Lana graces the front cover of our summer edition. The artist tells RÓISÍN KENNEDY that ‘a true portrait should reach beyond likeness to capture both the spirit and the presence of the person’. Enjoy!