The Dublin Painting and Sketching Club is celebrating 150 years in existence this year, and “Dublin Then and Now” is an exhibition of 87 paintings by some of its current members.

Showing in the Cowshed Gallery at Farmleigh in the Phoenix Park, from May 4th to May 19th 2024.

My contribution to the exhibition is “Bloom” (pastel, 48x48cm) and has the Victorian Fruit and Flower market in Dublin as its subject matter. Closed since 2019, I passed it recently and noticed that now the only flowers in evidence were the wild shrubs and weeds beginning to take root in the brickwork and windows and doorways as the building crept towards dereliction.