Rose Nolan

The word 'forever' emblazoned on a huge banner hanging in the stairwell greeted visitors to this 20-year survey of Rose Nolan's work. In vivid red and white it announced the show with the optimistic flourish of an enthusiastic cheerleader. Upstairs was a modest piece comprising words painted on to small hessian pennants. As if backtracking from the banner's proclamation of immortality, it more cautiously whispers: 'forever, a really long time, until I die'.

One of the most engaging things about this exhibition was the animated dialogue that seemed to be taking place between art works. Over the years Nolan has developed her themes or ideas so that they have emerged in different versions or forms. Important too is the playful and stylized oscillation between contrary moods and approaches in her art, giving it an air that is by turns confident and self-effacing, serious and schoolgirlish, grand and humble - all of which lends the work an endearingly human aspect.

Inevitably the viewer was caught in the crossfire of boasts and taunts. The sheer immodesty of works displaying the words 'mighty' or 'Rose Nolan for me' (abbreviated to 'RN 4 ME') was dramatically countered by others that flaunted anti-heroic words such as 'loser', 'flop' and 'dud'. It was unclear who the object of this name-calling might be; although the words confronted the viewer, one suspected that Nolan might be directing them mischievously at herself.

To a large degree Nolan takes herself as the main subject of her art, and this results in an approach that is often disarmingly self-referential and matter-of-fact: what you read is often what you get. A Very Early Constructed Work from 1991, for example, is just that. In Rose Nolan 2000/2001 (2000-01) the work's 18 panels spell out its title and date. Nolan's choice of focus stems not from a desire to be overtly biographical but simply from a wish to reflect on what it means to be an artist, using herself and her own art as the examples nearest to hand. She categorizes her work much in the way that a student might use subject headings to organize his or her studies: Banners, Flat Work, Word Work, Constructed Work, Homework, Quality Photography were all represented in this survey. The result was a diverse and dynamic display that Nolan masterfully laid out in relation to the architecture of the museum - suggesting that Exhibition Making should be added to her list of categories.

The relationship between Nolan's work and its historical sources, in particular Constructivism and non-Objective Geometric art, is a frequent discussion topic. Her abstract motifs and shapes (including letters stylized nearly to the point of abstraction) and her resourceful use of simple materials such as hessian and cardboard connect her to this tradition. Her painted cardboard constructions, each glued, stitched or tacked together in a manifestly handmade way, employ the iconography of Constructivism, notably the cross (a symbol she also relates to her Catholic upbringing). And the forms she works with - banners, flags, self-published pamphlets and books - recall the days when art had a didactic and revolutionary function. But Nolan inscribes them with references that are personal and playful, rather than public or political; for example, a flag in the exhibition simply declares 'I Was Here'.

Several haphazardly clustered museum vitrines filled with small works - photographs, multiples, publications and a hand-hooked rolled-up rug - were of particular interest. The artist's self-confessed early love affair with the Russian avant-garde was conveyed through an intriguing display of what she calls her Secret Russian Archive (1980-2002), including souvenirs collected when visiting Russia in 1985, revolutionary posters and books, busts and photographs of Lenin, as well as her own early works. Showing the depth of her infatuation and commitment to the Russian experiment is a set of worker-style clothing made and sometimes worn by Nolan in the early 1980s, hand-printed with Constructivist designs.

Nolan's work replays the drama and visual excitement of revolutionary aesthetics but recontextualizes these with content that has more to do with her everyday reality. She continues to be inspired by a defining historical moment when it seemed art could play a central role in social change, but recognizes with a mixture of romance, longing, humour, sadness and happiness her own inevitable distance from those times. With the intensity of a deeply felt schoolgirl crush or the ardent loyalty of a fan, she's bravely willing to take her chances with the heroic idea that art (in particular, abstract art) does still matter, and that she as an artist might make a difference.